Endless Grey: A Novella

Endless Grey: A Novella Sean Patrick

Convenience is only a mockery – Reality lies far outside of convenience. There is nothing more morose and sullen in this world than a man deprived of choice. I have seen it with my own sick eyes. Man on the street corner wandering. Cardboard sign in tow – ‘Starving – need work – need food – Vietnam veteran – VFW of somekind – junk sick and broken’ – Track marks like flea bites over the whole of the body – Calves laced with bright red holes, oozing and pussing and inviting infection – He, however, is the infection, and is spreading and replicating like a virus in the shambles of every city you can muster to name. God took a shit and it landed in the shape of Spanaway. God didn’t shit out Spanaway, everyone who lives there shit on the poor town. All of these municipalities start out innocently enough – When housing prices lull, the tweakers seep in like termites, hungrily feeding on the ghost of what used to be a liveable area. We stuck to the outskirts – Far enough into the wood and out of plain sight of the demons that are on every street corner.

Tacoma, Phoenix, Albequerkey, Texarkana, Seattle, San

Francisco, Santa Fe, New Orleans, Chicago, New York, Denver, what have you. Blank faces, wandering obscenity, obesity, bursts of violence in the booze crazy hills, no blue skies, no fluffy white either, divinity no where in sight – Black and white and grey from the sickening stupor that winces out in the frightened cries of the so-called passerby. Stomachs grumbling and only the cardboard sign to eat. Sick, sick, sick.

One doesn’t need special eyes to see this dismay. When you’re tuned in on the wavelength of junk, the scenes jump out like 3D movies. Glasses not needed. The whole sordid array of suffering and slow demise are categorically undeniable. You see the

yellow toothed (sometimes toothless), nicotine stained fingers greedily thumbing a package of cigarettes, glazed eyes, pinned or no pupils, staggering, wandering hopelessly, the foreign matter of brain wasting away in the hallow of a head that can not, will not be used. No beacon calling homeways because there is no home. Real world constraints are so easily forgotten because in the end, there is no real world. Irene and Andrea and your father and mother saw to that. It is hard to pin point the exact moment when one gave up. When you’re on a seventeen year jag, the let down happened so far back in that fuzzy, addled memory that you may be lucky to retain anything from childhood. Patrick would agree. He was sick. About to off himself. Kept a suicide journal and everything. Once his back was turned and I read the whole thing. Cheeky boy. He called it ‘Two Weeks Notice’, because he had hoped (I imagine) that someone would care enough about his dusty old ghost to read the dang thing. He never offed, of course, even though he’s been dead as long as I’ve known him. Sallow skinned grey ghost of junk. Hs life comes streaming through his pores in a haze you can smell. Wasting away without essence. If he could bottle himself, Patrick would be a poison as vile as Zyclon B, strychnine, and cyanide combined. The man wreaks of death. He is the shape of suicide. Prolonged contact inevitably results in blistering lungs, fluid build up, brain aneurysms with the possibility of stroke, and a bad case of the whiskey bends. Patrick’s frightened of the daylight though, so really the only time he’s visible is in the pre dawn hours while everyone is cozy in their homes and he doesn’t run the risk of making any kind of meaningful human contact. Poor bastard, that one. Andrea sent him running to the hills and Irene was kind enough to try and make sense of the poor wretch. No one though, not even a person as twisted as Irene can hope to make sense of that mess. His business card

reads ‘Professional Train Wreck.’

I boast in a languid lambaste lamenting the silence, inopportunity, impermanence – impervious to this obscene shell flickering the explosive root out. The end to all ends – As a means to an end. In the erosion and absurdity I see a wake for all things lying dormant in wait. And for this, I bend my grey, junk skinned knee and woefully bow my head – I’ve crawled through this muck for several years now – And bones brittle, teeth chatter, scalp grease matted with blood and resins not found on the cuff of the ampoule, misplaced the match that sparked the one true omission left gaping in the open sore upon your swollen tongue. And this brethren will be the will-call error that changed my life for better or worse…

But on to the finer things – Inside the abcess there lies a truth one can not escape – When on the move there is very little one can do to stay worthy of having a singular thought. With the impetus of age comes a demeanor of slight negligence… The ousters say they’ll win, so we keep to the outskirts among our kin – the only friends you have in this world are the junk, the junkies, and your woks. The rest is a slow funeral procession calling to order – Your addled veins hallow, as another pinch, another tie off will only release the vapid and vacuous though noxious mist that surely corrodes the only good sense you may or may not have left. Long handed, long winded in your cries, your cares for the world dare not tread on your one true desire – to snuff out – But the gloom will pass.

All those wasted cells in the embers of memories – Hash pipe in tow, Shiva dreamed a beautiful end for tomorrows destiny – It unfolds in a slow picture, though unpicturesque – The stench of absolute zero enough to send the spirit reeling. We’re blind in the dirt and the rust, soured on these fables that truncate fervently around the misshapen borders of broader times. There is no frenzy to be had, and in this esophageal outpour of acidic retribution, we are left to ponder only one score –

Patrick and Irene An hour passes – A day passes – A week passes – A month or maybe more in this strange limbo as inviting as warm water – On your back with the dead man’s float, no longer concerned with the vacancy in your soul – You were, after all, trespassing in your own mind – And now content to resign in a faded withdrawal lost between the hemispheres. It was shortly thereafter I ran into Patrick. He was once a morose artist. “How are you doing,” I say, and from his flapping jaw comes an insurmountable diarrhea of words:

“My decisions can not be helped. My heart can not be felt. Dead in a dead world. Zombies streaking by unaware and oblivious to the decay and gore and horror encompassing us all – I gave up long ago – And in the echoed recesses of my mind, it is hard to pinpoint exactly when – I’ve pontificated on that notion a myriad of times with only my closest friends – Family, whatever that is, had to be left out of the loop - Junk sick and heart broken and lonely – Then she came into my life – For years, I had been a hired geek – A traveling musician – An oddity more than a curiosity – And the only

provable respect I garnered came from fresh junkies and adroit freaks exploring their own insanity. Marchens of woe fell from my maw as if I were some doomed Parnassian counting down to extirpation – Total and final check out – On the brink of a nervous breakdown – Emotionally disheveled and hallow – My waxy skin sticking to my brittle bones on a frame much to slight for a man of my height. Liquor and dolophine being the main constituents of my diet – Frail, frail, frail – Sickening.”

He is a broken record, only adding insult to his injury. I’ve heard the story more times than I can count. Patrick has no shame or dignity, because these are human emotions, and he, as he has constantly reminded me, is not human. He, moreover, is convinced that in his tenure on this planet, he wears a human mask, but holds no true emotion. I, on the other hand, like to remind him, that that is the hallmark of an antisocial personality. “You’re a sociopath,” I say. But he’s nodding and doesn’t hear me. Without missing a beat, he perks up, going on as if he’d been in the middle of a long story:

“So, the jigsaw man come wavering in, waving his dementia like the shit on his chin – Eyes locked in peril, knees locked and turned as if he’s a pigeon-toed fool – He bellows from his hallow chest an animalistic cry of mortal unrest – “This coil dishevels me!” – An outspoken angst – “Among ye, who hath the right to cast the first stone? No? When the doubt is enough to render string to thine neck, bullets to thine head, slashes to thy wrist, who is freest to wander? Those who keep thy innards turned away or those who bare thine soul in sweet dismay? Scoundrels! Rat bastards you all! Self righteous,

antiquated insurgents who have nothing to call their own!” And with that, the mist derails cavalcading into a simple stench of the axioms in the frontal lobe.

“And he just hafta have a pair of mutant disciples – These wretches come teetering in like dry heaves and cold sweats – Clock in strong like the junk in your veins – make the brain spin and bruise and turn colors til the head swells like a melon and Guinea Worms sprout from the ears – These sick fuckers are worse than anything you’s gander in National Geographic. A page turner fer sure. I digress though. They are surely Christ’s muse – We push the plunger seeking ambrosia – We appease the gods with the rust and blood caked on the syringe – And these nods are our bitter reward for the complacency we crave – Hunger now a mere emotion and as ignorable as the pain dulled by the ampoule and dropper.” His speech growing slow and slurry all the while.

I frown and pat him on the shoulder. Patrick looks up, seemingly oblivious to the fact that I was having this “conversation” with him. In his tired eyes, there lies an indefinable wisdom that is wrought with the strangeness and pain that he’s had to endure. I, for one, was not in any condition to question him about his what haves and why for’s. Some things a man oughtta keep to himself. “Things will get better, man. Ya dig? There’s a lot of goodness and meaning left in this world without you having to indelibly focus on the wrong and evil aspects of it all.” Patrick turns to me and without opening an eye gives a slow retort: “There is a definite impetus towards annihilation that is prevalent in these water-shed years of my so-called generation – so-called generation - Tyrants are at large in the world, and this nonetheless brings a kind of melancholia to these towering

monoliths towards irreverence and self-destruction that so many people in my age group feel. The overwhelming domination of fear is a construct that the administration has beaten into our livelihood for the past sixteen years. We are lost. Marooned hopelessly on a desert isle with no savior or salvation, rhyme or reason, and innocuous – Completely oblivious to the fact that we are drawing our last breath. No more fun. No more drunkards for freedom. We are ultimately lost among our own rancid decay and forlorn as seekers of our own destinies. Utter rubbish. The has been’s and have not’s gambled away the only solace available, and now it’s on to an ever maddening dulling of the senses – A rabid response to the dumbing down of our people in our time. Junk sick from a lack of choice.” He starts to nod again, his thoughts and actions in a terminal jet lag.

“How’s Irene,” I ask.

Patrick is nodding and morose. The color fades from his face as if market bleach had gripped his very essence. He sighs in a lull.

Irene was, at first, a beautiful enchantress of other worldly nature – Even piss drunk, her poise and demeanor were magnetic – People flocked to her in nonsensical patterns to glimpse what can only be described as awe inspiring. Her delicate curves shown aptly through form fitting attire – Toned and feminine and evil through and through – But not at first glance.

“Before she met me, she was an angel,” Patrick offered. His face as blank as the unbeaten snow. “Before I knew anything about her she was perfect… Before the end of before, there was no more…” He trailed off for a moment, brandishing the thousand yard stare of a shell shocked rube. “She was a heart attack – my end. Who would have thought I could be defeated by such a slight frame – My nerves misfire in her presence.” I rub my hand on his scalp.

“Christ, man. I only asked you how she was. You’re poetic in your misery, brother. It makes me sick.. You ain’t broke, but you still gotta fix.” “Doesn’t matter,” he says, “She’s got nothing to say to me anymore.” Patrick looks doomed – Broken into bits by a mere gaze alone – They were surely poison for each other, but for a time, shared a homeostasis that was parasitic. Alone, they were pilot fish without a host. A sort of lost tape worm hoping to stumble upon a suitable intestine. Patrick had a light in his stupor he named Irene. And now she was a fetid itch. That bleeding black head, black hole, fervent succubus that controlled, nay, bottled the leftovers of his soul. But this man believeth not in divinity – “Only an eye sore,” he’d say. “Bedtime stories the likes of Santa Clause and El Chupacabra to keep the kiddies in line – Who would keep this presumable god in line? Surely no one designed in his servitude – No man of the cloth – No mortal – No one created in his likeness – Not Adam, nor Eve, nor the snake in the grass – Not Santa or the Easter Bunny or any other imaginary Captain America the world over – We’re strays – Amazing we’re not all weary unto death with rabies and anthrax – The only scourge here is the smack – but it keeps us in line, eh?”

Patrick’s words fall out of the brain cloud in a quiet cadence that only lepers and junkies can hear – A sort of frequency designated fog horn in tune only with the junk channel – He’d bellow on for days if he didn’t have to stop once in a while for breath. I decided to stay on with him for a while, thinking it my duty to keep him ‘safe’ in the meantime. I hail a cab and give him Pat’s address. He’s nodding in the back seat of the cab making occasional whimpering noises and the broken speech of sleep language. The driver pulls into his complex, which is in the tin-pan alley side of town – Hustlers and whores peddling wares under the early morning moonlight – Priests of the black market hocking goods left and right – Hooker trips over her high heels too strung out to walk and tears her fish nets. Bathes in the puddle where she lands. Drunks vomiting in the alleyway, spinning, feverish and too gruesome for words. We walk to his front door and Patrick collapses on the cheap wood frame. The door almost comes off the hinge, but he manages to slide his key in and turn the knob, immediately collapsing on the pile of rubbish that surrounds the portal. Nice place, I’m thinking. A bit too far into the void for me. But I don’t want him to aspirate. I step over his lifeless body and into the kitchen. The walls are bare and the furniture is filthy. The place fairly carries the stench of ephemeralness. The big black curtains. It is then that I spy his journal. “You don’t mind, do you?” He grunts in consonants.

Two Weeks Notice

Its absurd to me that I am so fucking depressed. I can’t put my finger on it. I feel lonely so much of the time. To tears, even. All the drinking surely can’t be helping. And while I

absolutely revel in the serenity of playing music again, it is only for the briefest of moments that I truly feel ‘normal’- whatever that is.

The pages are wrinkled, and blood had spilled on it here and there. I rest my elbow on the table and push a burnt and bent spoon aside, nearly grazing the business end of his favorite tool.

I’ve been on dolophine for four days now, the kick not getting any better. My arms are starting to heal, but I can feel the relapse coming on. Amidst the drunken haze that included several, shall we say, debacles, that shook me to the bitter core. And I still lie here brooding and reading. The encounter I had with my family on Sunday didn’t help. It left me more agrivated in retrospect than I hoped it would. And even tonight, the brief conversation with my sister left me feeling like the odd man out. A mutant, perhaps, that sleeps in the outskirts. I’m not giving into a case of the ‘poor me’s’ by any means, but I just want someone to touch my shoulder or stroke my head while I doze off and tell me that things will even out – that everything will be okay – Because as lost in this bout of self destruction as I am, the last thing I want to do is end it all with a 12 gauge slug to the jaw.

Gawd (I notice the intentional misspelling of ‘God,’ as if to hide the phrase’s true significance. Name dropping as usual.) tell me this will be over soon. Give me a reason to laugh and dance. Give me a reason to smile that doesn’t leave me drug addled and booze crazy. I don’t even know if it’s too much to ask, but I seriously can not continue in

this fashion. I’d give myself two weeks. Then all bets are off and I will be forced to cash out at the nearest check stand.

I know the passages are old, but I look for a date on the damn thing anyway. Must have been shortly after Irene left. I knew the lad had no intention of shooting himself. He pawned his weapons months ago for drug money. Pat’s done well to keep himself in a state of discomposure for as long as I care to remember.

His body jerks on

the floor and he half way rolls to one side. I hear him mumble, and I say, “what’s that,” to no response. I read on.

Day One: The morning is grey. I’ve come to find that the weather may have little or no effect on my actual mood. Yesterday was bright and beautiful and yet I still sulked in this kind of stupor that I had been unable to shake. Even after a brisk half hour walk. I couldn’t rest. When I did briefly sleep, I was haunted by strange dreams. The night before last, I dreamt that I lost part of my left ring finger. It healed quickly and when I found the remains of the missing piece, it was soggy and looked as though animals had chewed parts of the flesh off. Reminded me a little of a thawed uncooked fish stick with clumps of the breading falling off. The dream was vivid and I remember wondering how it would affect my guitar playing. When I woke up, I couldn’t help but feel around to make sure my finger was still there. Narcotic dreams are strangely real. Probably my body kicking the shit. I want to read some Burroughs.

I have a hearty chuckle at this. I don’t know if his nightmares compare to those at all.

…Still trying to be on the upswing. Trying, trying, trying. But there’s a block in my mind. I’m going to try my best to get it out. To escape this infernal giggle, giggle, stab me in the eye bullshit. Fuck it. Fuck them. Fuck me. I can no longer endure the slow bevel to my soul. This fucking hurts. Where are my brothers in this mess? Is it too much to ask for that someone actually give a shit instead of this shaking heads, pointing fingers line of crap that I am becoming so accustomed to?

His self deprecating journal entry is interrupted by some prose:

The lines cascading We’re debating Masturbating Faulted, failing Menstruating Dead and Failing Commiserating

Don’t speak for me.

You don’t know who I am.

Fuck you and your self

righteousness. Fucking cowards. I feel on the verge of a shit storm. I’m out, man. Gone. And the day’s not half over.

I fell asleep somewhere in the intermittent pages. How much contempt can one person harbor? Admittedly, some of it is pointed back at himself. Junkies often have an inferiority complex that overshadows the addiction itself. A ripe, putrid monster that grows from the inside out, waiting for the junk sand to tick down. I was awakened sometime later by a rustling. Jumped quickly cause I thought it was a rat. Pat was awake and rifling through the wreckage of his domicile. “What’s the trouble?” I ask. He looks possessed. His normally grey face is a light shade of red and there is an urgency in his jerky movements. “I know its around here somewhere,” he’s muttering. And I get the picture. He’s got the yen. Patrick stumbles over a large collection of unwashed, filthy clothing. Diving in, he finds a disgusting pair of what used to be blue jeans and tears through the pockets. His eyes momentarily light up as his hand reemerges. With a swiftness that I’ve never seen in the boy, he plops down at the table, shaky hands reaching for the spoon. He produces a wad of cotton from his pockets and sets the package on the table. “No horse lately, but this dilauded oughtta take care of me til we can hit Chinatown.” He opens the packaging and dumps the grayish powder into his spoon. He draws some stagnant water with the syringe and mixes the noxious substance, eyes ablaze as if the sun was rising within his slight frame. I hear a click, click of the zippo. Moments later, he’s drifting into himself, sounds fading and dreary eyes rolling slowly into the back of his skull. “Wanna fix,” he manages to slush out before his first nod. I sit staring at him. Moments later, he sits up as though he had been electrocuted. “We gotta get down town,” he mumbles. “For what?” “I gotta get to the hock shop and see about getting my shit. My shotgun, man. I need that fucker around. These whores

and pimps batter at my doors and uhh…” He has no idea what he’s saying. We stroll down the skid row alleyway in the safe light of day. The scene from the night before was no where in sight. I am sure it is only subterranean. When one scratches enough of the scab from the surface, one in the course will definitely find blood. Patrick was a scavenger for that kind of plankton life form. Never more than a stones throw away from the incorrigibly doomed. It offsets his mood, I would wager. Green, infected mucous drains from his nose and there is spittle on his chin. Junk sores aching for another fix. Each one of those tracks is a mouth to feed. And it is a mouth he can not afford not to feed.

We stumble up the road towards Bill’s Loans, Patrick’s hock shop of choice. Various vagrants are wandering about inside and out. Old, grey, leather matted faces, dirty, dingy and lifeless eyes… The faces of addicts who seek their savior. Pat walks in and immediately Bill (or whoever was attending the counter) makes him. “I told you before, Guy, you’re shit’s long gone.” “How can that be,” he mutters back, “I got my ticket right here in my front pocket.” “You gave us your stuff long ago, man. You need to kick that habit. It’s rotting your brain.” “Fucking bastard! You got no right speaking to me that way.” Patrick is speaking in his slurry other language. He reached his hand into that disgusting old pocket and retrieved a ratty old yellow carbon copy of his pawn ticket. I take it from him and notice that it is dated from last November. He will find no solace here. “Come on, man,” I say, “What do you need your shotgun back for anyway? You survived this long without it. Besides, we gotta get to Chinatown, right?” His beady

eyes dart up, then close half way as he staggers and nearly falls backwards. “Lets get out of this hole and into a new one.” I hold the door for him as he slunks by.

Chinatown is just a few short blocks up North 13th. The weather being slightly fare, we decide to walk.

Downtown is balmy, the asphalt blistering, black footed

passersby meandering in the open streets – Sidewalk panhandlers selling cheap crap of every milieu out of plastic shopping carts – Hanging paper signs with tin cans to collect change or spit or whatever anyone walking through would care to offer. A man in a Santa Clause outfit ringing a bell – Whores leaning on the brick walls cat calling at everyone in sight. “Hey sailor,” they say, “wanna ride?”, in mocking contempt. Camouflaged by dumpsters and used condoms, needles stacked high, sunken eyes, bad skin and a rabid case of the clap, whore spittle, frothy mouthed wasteland in cheap fishnets and terrible high heels, cigarette beaten hags, rogues, scoundrels of the night.

On the edge of Chinatown, there is a lone red building. Exactly one block away is a coffee shop. Patrick tells me to wait outside and he steps through the door of the dilapidated shack. A few minutes after our arrival, he emerges and says we have to wait at the diner. I order two cups of joe and we grab a table. Patrick stares at the coffee as if it is some vile poison, and to the taste, it may as well be. “I swear the tap water in this town is infected,” I say to no one in particular. “That shit’ll kill ya,” Pat winces back. He is shaky and agitated. I can tell by the glaze in his eyes that his timer is low. Body rocking and arms folded across his stomach as if he is in agony. Thirty long, quiet minutes later, The Man walks in. Notices Pat and gives him a nod. Patrick gets up from

the table and follows him to the alley just outside of my window. From the looks of it, The Man, clad in sunglasses and a long jacket, seemed to be explaining something to Patrick. A misunderstanding, perhaps? Patrick is running his hands through his greasy hair and down his face. Beads of sweat are accumulating on his forehead. I see Patrick shake the guys hand in an apparent exchange of money and product. No one here even seems to care. When The Man was gone, I headed towards the door to meet Pat in the alley. He is visibly pissed about something. “Everything go as planned,” I ask. “Fuck, no,” he shoots back, “Bastard’s out of smack.” A gloomy expression on his face. “So what’d he give you?” “A couple-a grams of coke. Half price, he says, cause I’m such a good customer. Fuck him. I’ll start going uptown where those yuppie fuckers go. Those pieces of shit could probably hardly stand the sight of me.” “Buddy, I can barely stand the sight of you.” This raises a smile on that waxy face of his as we’re headed back up the road towards his apartment. En route, Patrick runs into an acquaintance who offers him a bottle of Broncleer (cough syrup enriched with Codeine) – He tosses me the bottle and I laugh. “That’ll go good with some whiskey,” he says to me as we’re still walking. In the junk world, you stumble through the spectrum of dope on every level: morphine, diamorphine, dolophine, hydromorphone, oxycottin, fentanyl, Demerol, darvicet (though undesirable for lack of oomph), roxicet, percocet, hydrocodone, oxycodone, the everpopular codeine, and a whole slew of opiates I fail to recall. Hustlers peddle diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam, clonazepam, ativan, nembutol, seconal, phenobarbitol, amiltryptamine, Benzedrine, amphetamine, and any other substance that will bring you up or put you down. All you gotta do is decide which way you wanna go.

Andrea We get a block away from Pat’s place and I offer, “We forgot the whiskey.” “It’s alright, man, there’s a liquor store just up the road. I’m tired. Just walk up there and get us a pint.” I did not even waste the breath to answer him. He turns towards the lot and I head up the road to get some booze. It amazes me that a block or so from Pat’s, the town blossoms into a less unfriendly place. You see police cars, trees laden with beauty bark, pedestrian travelers unafraid of the impositions around the corner. The liquor store, however, is on the edge of this limbo, and around closing time, you see a line of drunkards, shaky with the DTs, loitering in the parking lot, looking for spare change in their filthy rags, booze crazy eyes begging for pennies. Not at three in the afternoon though. I walk through the double doors and head for the bourbon shelf. I remember that Patrick is fond of Wild Turkey, so I grab a fifth and head to the register. It is then that I see the familiar face of Andrea, who does not see me. I fidget momentarily, thinking it might be possible to shrink away and feign invisibility, but as I set the bottle on the counter, she turned and recognized me. Almost gasping, she let out an, “Oh my God, how are you doing?” “Fine,” I say, “Can’t complain. What are you doing here,” I ask in half jest, noticing her cart is filled with Vodka and tiny airplane bottles of Rumplemintz. She always had a thing for booze that tasted like toothpaste. “Oh, you know.. Shopping, I guess,” she giggles as if I really cared. “What are you doing around here? Didn’t you move away like… Last year or something?” I grin and nod, “Yeah… Moved far away.. Back in town visiting family… Hanging out up the road with Patrick.” The smile runs away from her face at the faded memory of her old friend. “Wow… Patrick. Really? I

thought he was dead.” “No, he’s very much alive… And just up the road. Waiting for me, actually.”

Andrea was the type of girl that, although good looking, was possessed by a self centered and selfish demeanor. On the surface, she was lovely. Easy to talk to, with a slight southern accent, dark hair dyed pink in the front that hung in long strands over her pale blue eyes. Patrick had met her in a tavern he used to frequent. She was a barmaid (well, the barmaid, I reckon) and rednecks would venture inside just to gawk at her. She knew it though, and used her frame to garner endless amounts of tips and gratuity. Ogling strangers were happy to oblige. Something looked strange about her today though. Something stale and stagnant in her eyes. She looked like a beaten dog. Thirtysix this year. She began, “I remember when he was together, he used to write me the most beautiful poetry… I don’t know what happened.” She was half-lying, of course, because she knew damn well what happened. Denial is a powerful thing. “Well, he still does a bit of writing. Actually last night he was orating quite madly about the inequities of the world. He gets a little out there, you know?” I pay for my bottle and step out of the line. “I gotta run though,” I retort, “it was nice to run into you.” “You, too. You really oughtta call me sometime. My number is the same.” “Why?”, I ask. She, of course, thought this was a joke and just laughed a fickle sort of laugh as I headed towards the door.

Outside, I feel as though I can’t shake her eyes from burning a hole in the back of my head. Something about that woman makes me feel dirty. A different kind of dirt than

I am accustomed to – The kind that doesn’t easily wash off and sits below the surface of the skin like a replicating virus that you can not shed. The dirt beneath your finger nails that is too deep to dig out with a pointed file. A shower will not help. When I arrived back at Patrick’s, his door was flung wide open and his stereo was blaring at top volume. An old Pixies record. He was on the couch with a notebook, apparently chain smoking, as the ashtray was ripe with cigarette butts, some of which were still smoking. “ I got the whiskey,” I say announcing my presence. “Right?,” he says, “well pour some in a glass with that cough syrup. It’ll do the job.” When he looked up it was almost frightening. Those razor-sharp cocaine eyes peering into me like a hook catching the bass’ mouth. Junk eyes are sad, weepy. Coke eyes are shocking. Junk eyes are devoid of pain and emotion. Coke eyes are rabid and on the cuff of rampage. He still had the tie on his arm. Loose, but it hung there like a hangman’s noose that had been cut off the gallows. Mainlining coke is like a sudden jolt of electricity. The receptors in the brain light up like the strip in Las Vegas. One push and you’re exploding with all the energy of a hundred hydrogen bombs. In the red and going critical.

Momentarily, it crosses my mind that it may be a bad idea to do as Pat suggests, but I figure when in Rome… I find a clean-ish tall glass and pour myself a generous serving of the syrup. I fill the rest with bourbon and give the concoction a good swirl with the only unburned spoon in the kitchen. The drink tastes pretty well putrid and in an effort not to prolong the agony of drinking from the poisoned well, I gulp like a dehydrated mutant and swallow nearly all of it in three or four pulls. Ten or so minutes later, zang… Caught in a tailspin – Fatal updraft – Swimming in the jet wash of a

thousand airliners headed towards the hallow in the center of my brain… I see you there in my dusty old memories honey glazed dew as free radicals floating in the atmospheric chemistry that is only visible to those hidden in plain sight. Sticky flesh waxy abstract deciduous forest on the fringes of migraine luminescence. Lights out when the bulb no longer flickers. Waxy abstract flesh rusting between my fingers. Frightened at even mentioning the obvious out loud. Patrick moves quickly for the door and I am in the recesses of a nose dive spiraling to dimensions not mentioned in anything Nietchez or Dante ever wrote. I scurry for the page he was working on. There, on the table, it read: Things were happening behind my sleeping back. I can feel it in my bones. That loose paranoia that I could not put a finger on, nor dust for prints. People really should be honest, but instead feign concern and pat you on the head like a wounded dog. Fuck all that. Believeth the lies as if they are truths. Stay unguarded and outside your means. Vomit repeatedly and rehash old rashes. Burn your eyelashes. Breed breed breed. Expel your denomination. Atone for the atonal nonsense. Speak jibberish. Be prideful and angry. Become the beast you know you are. Everyone's a hostage and slavery is freedom. Liars and thieves abounding. Cheating. Hypocrisy. Bullshit piled six feet high. Wheel-barrow overflowing with a pile of nonsense that cascades into an empty wake for the bemoaned and bemused who are misused again and again. And it is your fault for letting it happen. You’re in reruns, man, reruns. You’re a mad hatter who needs a new hat. Become a ghost. Erase yourself. Misplace yourself. You lie just as good as they do, to you there is no truth. You have nothing to consider. Reconsider it a gift. Your

bad luck is the only motivation you have to be better than every single one of those snobby elitist fucks – Rubes in a town that's embarrassed to be a town. Believe that there is no greater good. You have a choice. You have a chance. Become the nothing they know you can.

I cannot comprehend any kind of meaning at the moment. It seems significant at first, but my brain is in a crawl… My stomach is wincing. Reach for the garbage can and do the Technicolor spit. Tastes worse coming up. Maybe this was his way to escape. Incapacitate the captor and hit the bricks – Tuck and roll. But I am not the enemy here. For a moment, I believe he’s gone for good. I have no will to be rational. My thoughts are jagged and broken, and seeing straight is not an ability I have. Under the table, I see the notebook I read from the other night. Flip the cover open and read once again from Two Week’s Notice:

Day Two: Woke up on a couch in a strange part of town. Last night was some of the only relenting of this strange moodiness that I’ve had in quite some time. When I went to the hock shop earlier, I contemplated on retrieving my long guns. And I thought for now that that action might be too ugly, grim and above all else, predictable. My impending actions require thought. And I don’t want that horrible scene to be anywhere near the sanctuaries I’ve rested my head in. My fail safe, I’d imagine, would be in some skid row hotel room, where maybe only stunned guests would be privy to the hopelessly doomed actions that would certainly befall – well, the maids – the cleaning service… Would have to find a way around my experimental brain paint – And maybe the

Remmington or the Winchester aren’t completely necessary. A bottle of bourbon and a handful of dolophine would probably do the job just as well. But like I said, thought before action. I kind of amazed myself, because yesterday I scheduled a meeting with a ‘professional’ who specializes in ‘curing’ depression… if that can, in fact, be achieved. I am not a stout believer in talk therapy or psychoanalysis or whatever it’s called these days. I think if you’ve been twisted for this long, you may be a lost cause. All this pointless drivel is seriously beginning to grate on what’s left of my soul. I’m more or less a whipping post where I sit for now. But it’s all a moot point anyway. This will all be over soon. I feel estranged. I feel defamed. Punch drunk in the title fight. No more bobbing and weaving from this pile of shit. I think my final piece will be a ballad – maybe a dirge – that I’m sure they’ll play while my ashes are being handed around and prodded by the less than handful of mourners that come to grieve or laugh at my demise. I’m so very tired. Wasted… And I can’t find my way home. What more can I say?

It trailed off a bit after that - I was at the tail end of consciousness.

Morning light through the cracks in the blinds. How long had I slept? Am I still alone? I call out for Pat, but there is no answer. In a fog, I stand in the pile of rubbish contemplating which direction to head – No one in the bathroom – He seldom used the bedroom, and this morning it is empty. No one on the floor in the kitchen and no spoons out of place. I shudder to think that my old friend is shedding his mortal coil in favor of whatever awaits beyond this three dimensional space. I sift through the cluttered papers on the coffee table, the kitchen table hoping to find an indication of direction. Junkies

don’t keep address books. It’s not exactly like I could take his picture around to dealers’ dens and ask if they’d seen him.

I’d be shot on site in a hail of oinking and

condescending laughter. This would take some finesse – Maybe call Irene. Maybe call Andrea. I don’t know why either of them would have a lead, but it’s the only shot I may have at finding the bastard.

The bar she worked in was on the other side of town – Not necessarily a better side of town, mind you, but racked with woes of its own kind. No smack on the west side. Just speed freaks and demons – Old red necks in stained wife beaters, spitting while speaking, legions of the doomed in heavy flocks living life by the drop, addicts of tragedy and the morbidly curious stop to watch like a bad traffic accident on the 101. The disheveled gather here from all walks of life at the dead end in a monstrosity of a city. Walking into the tavern I feel no comfort. Haven’t been in these digs in quite some time. And the ironious thing is, the faces haven’t changed – A bit more dilapidated, heart sick and broken, but the same old drunkards and hangers on. Andrea is not behind the bar. She is wiping tables and gathering empties. In her short skirt and high hells, you can almost see her ass as she bends down to the table. No doubt a gratuity earner for sure. The bartender lazily looks in my direction as I stop by the counter. Her face is cold and desperate. A poor widow perhaps, or someone that has given up on a dream for something better – Her eyes cloudy with a dismay that speaks volumes without one syllable. “Whatcha drinking,” she asks. I turn my head and ask for a beer which she was quick to deliver. Andrea walks in my direction, and upon noticing me flashes a wincing smile. I nod and remove my hat.

“You’re looking for him, aren’t you?”

I nod again, fearing a harsh revelation.

“Well,” she says, “he’s not here.. Was last night, from what I’ve heard, but I haven’t seen him. There was a strange message on my machine, but I couldn’t barely understand it. If it was him, he was very drunk or… I don’t know what. He didn’t sound right though.”

“Um.. did he say where he was or where he was going?”

“I just told you I count understand the thing.” Andrea seemed oddly shaken, and the “warm” reception from the other day seemed but a cold and distant memory. She looked on the verge of tears. Who could blame her though, having to spend the bulk of her day in this place.

“Alright,” I say, “I’ll get outta here… Heard anything out of Irene?”

She gave me a dirty look and mumbled something about having work to do. She threw her towel down on the bar and headed into the kitchen. I turned for the door but not before hearing muffled sobs. There was a flyer posted near the door for Geoff Rats. I

seemed to remember Patrick orating about them on some strange night. I’ll take a chance, I thought, thinking he might be interested in the performance.

The Vector was an old coffee house turned venue about ten miles away. My cab pulled up in the midst of fifty or so twenty somethings chain smoking in the parking lot. It’s hard not to feel a little claustrophobic as I am trying to weave my way through the crowd. There is a hefty guy sitting by the door checking ID’s and taking money. I fork over the cover charge and he stamps the under side of my left wrist. He eyeballs my scar as I pull my sleeve back down.

Patrick and I met on the eighth floor of St. Benedict’s Hospital. It just happened to be the psych ward. I was brought in one night with a badly lacerated wrist which the on-call diagnosed as being self-inflicted. I was barely conscious and therefore unable to speak. When I came to, I had a myriad of stitches and soft restraints on my other arm. Held prisoner. Chained to the bed in a wasteland of the mentally divergent. My room was occupied by one other soul – the Man of the hour, as it were. He was solemn and quiet at first, perhaps in the throes of some withdrawal or penitence. It was he who spoke first.

“Was in the skid row quarry a stones throw from the river – Rancid sewer smell permeates the air – I became an apex predator there in the early dawn light. It was sorrowful – The place, the music – Fully steeped in an isolation that was ecstatic in the

real world – There are no words – Here there are no thoughts – A fingernail to the chalkboard – A knife to the throat – A poison capsule of despondence swallowed to find the purgatory within – Herein there lies no judgment and no policies to which may or may not afford you to be judged – Only the kind tired eyes of the grayest ghost – Swimming in your veins and your preconceived notions of a twice told tale told so many times the algebra is incalculable – Physics is a lie – Planetary notions and universalities are mistaken in the broad range path – Sink within – Find the line that divides thought from action and repel down the sheer faced wall – No safety nets in place – No Sherpa to guide you down – Inside yourself the vines turn to rust and climbing back up is an impossibility – Learning to fly is the only way out.”

The world is full of dying poetry – dying dreams – the old earth turns to rubble and dust beneath our weary feet. For ages now we’ve prolonged this struggle in our arrogant plight to be the rulers of our own fates. We can not see passed ourselves, and therefore the greater good – the greater unity – is out of sight. You can catch a glimpse of it here and there, but it is as attainable as finding the end of the rainbow – The leagues and fathoms of distrust, resentment and isolation are palpable when one chooses to tune into the human channel. So by nature it is so much easier to tune out, turn the blind eye away in favor of greed and self-satisfying whims. We’re all narcissists when it boils down passed the base. Are you frightened when you see yourself as you walk by a mirrored wall? Is that your reflection with the beady and empty eyes? Can you muster a smile as you see the twisted wreckage of who you used to be?