DRUGS (500)

Drugs: Testosterone

The girl I asked to meet me never showed. Someone with her name and dry sense of humor did enter the bar’s barn doors, but sometimes people can travel back in time enough to snap a photo for their dating profiles and this one here was a regular Fucked Rogers.

The girl behind her with the Vodka Soda never turned around. The girl at the end of the bar by the coats peeked every time another parka walked in. The girl outside smoked cigarettes, her friend smoked lights and the one sitting with two more attractive best friends never looked twice once she caught Marrian McFly beside me.

On the bus they were too sad. On the train they never lost their headphones. At the second bar they were non-existent, at the third I knew I’d never afford them.

But on my phone they were always smiling. In that universe always laughing, touching and pointing, calling, beckoning me to come. I wanted nothing more.

Girls in the club are dancing. Grinding and grooving, some soft like falling mist; but shallow, picky, too hot to look my way and tumbling over familiar steps. Talked to a girl who asked if my name was Joel. The boy at the next bar came on to me enough to scare me out and into bar #5 where the girls were already rolling and I’d been offered enough treats to Buck Rogers me into a future of terrible consequence in which I accept the offer to join them, pay the price of a sack of weed to have my dick sucked by four or more people after and before it’s inserted into five or more holes and pulled out of places I’d rather not mention. In this future I am unhappy, sick and sickening, but in this, my new present, I am fucking. In this, the now, I am finally wanted. There is desire in eyes that reflect my stature and I’ve never worked so hard to produce more fluid for them to share.

The girls in this present are small. I can analyze, and criticize because I’ve minimized interactions with them. They and their wonderful curves; the milking of their life force asks too much from me and I revel in this present where the want is satisfied with immediacy. In the reflections of my decisions are those fled from bars one through a million finding me here as I’ve found them – driven by a madness of testosterone.

In my future I worry for sake of transmission; presently, Joel’s got a terribly dry sense of humor, but at least he can swallow a good load. 

Drugs: Marijuana

I steal from these places. Juice, snacks, a cookie or a deli sandwich. It’s easy. Act like it’s your job to steal and eventually it will be. But I never walk out with anything. I eat or I drink it in the store in front of them. In a Wal-Mart they offer sandwiches when you walk in. Take one, open it and eat throughout your shopping experience. By the time you check out it’s as if the sandwich never existed.

I never steal from Duane Reade. Not anymore.

I see Green.

But Duane Reade is open 24 hours and sometimes it’s three in the morning and you need something as important as index cards, macaroni and cheese, a protractor and more juice.

Duane Reade remembers me.

I’ve been standing still almost thirty minutes now because I feel them watching. Waiting for me to ingest. Waiting to pop out with cuffs.

Security Guard gave me stink eye. I smelled it down the escalator and into Magazines. I like to look at the magazines but I never purchase them. I hardly even touch them. I like to imagine if I stare at the cover long enough I can guess the extent of its content and I’ll always have a mental masturbation image of whoever their revealing model is this month.

I see Green.

I’m alone in Duane Reade and they taunt me with automatic intercom hypnosis.

Browsed the medicine aisles not realizing what ailment I wanted to cure. Ear, nose, I get to vitamins, circle around to candy and I want eye drops, but they’re too obvious and I tell myself Duane Reade doesn’t care if I’m high.

I see Green.

Picked up razors, yanked a water filter off the wall, put back my B vitamins and the value pack of tissues and I realize I’ve been here almost an hour now and this is when I stop beside the office supplies and I wait where they can’t see me anymore.

I see Green.

I wait for thirty minutes. I don’t have any money, I’m too scared to be hungry, my mouth is too dry to ignore, but I don’t move because I remember what I’m holding in my pockets and they see green because I’ve smoked it on the way and if they want to taste me they’ll know, but they don’t care that I’m high, only if I choose to steal and when I finally move I’ve opened Tropicana Orange Juice into my mouth and I race to grab more razors, B-complex, something that’s supposed to drain ear wax and a pack of colorful sharpies because they’re on sale.

Riding the escalator back, hunger takes me. I must have their $3 pack of raisin cookies. I prove I’m not stealing by grabbing more chap stick at the register and I check out with a balance of $74.75.

Carrying the heavy bags home, I remember the ailment I originally came to cure and I schedule two more hours for cough drops.

Drugs: Cocaine

Trauma to the head behind what’ll soon be an embarrassing bald spot. Bits of gravel still remain. He’s yellow around the fingers and forearm. I kneel down wondering what’s been bleeding longer –his skull or his nose. Left eye swelled shut.

I’m guessing his opponent was right handed.

Good guess. Plug the crimson fountain. Flip him over. Check for more blood.

Checking.

They’re always heavier when they’re awake.

Okay, checking vitals.

Don’t narrate. Just do it. Expose his chest. Check for more blood.

Checking.

Baseball cap on the ground. Opponent’s still amped and telling us our night isn’t over.

He’s asking me about Angie.

Feed the boy some oxygen. Wrap his head. Lift his arm.

Doors close. Our engine ignites and I wrap his fracture wondering if he fought for Angie.

I think he may puke, should I turn him over?

He won’t. Most of his trauma’s above the neck.

His vitals check, he’s stable and steadying.

The boy’s not in danger anymore. We haven’t moved and there’s continual trauma to our truck.

Angie.

I tell him to hold the patient still. Keep him quiet and get this vehicle moving. His opponent’s now shattered our window’s glass, broken a tail light and sent my recruit shivering to the corner. I crawl to the front. Driver’s radioing for backup and inching through the traffic. I step out the passenger side door and with my hands high I calmly ask the man to lower his weapon – a splintered fragment of the construction beside us.

Trembling fingers, increased heart rate and excessive blood flow to the skull. His jaw’s broken. I’m invincible.

I’ve caught his first blow and return it.

Trauma to the skull. Trauma to the ear. Trauma to the jaw, the neck and Angie’s thousands of spineless friends are watching.

You’re bleeding.

Our patient is stable, the traffic’s cleared and my nose is leaking.

That was incredible.

Nearly died for Angie.

I didn’t see him get you.

He didn’t. I check his pockets, telling my recruit to listen for the next radio communication. The Holy Ghost shoots up my nostril.

Is it always like this?

Sometimes there’s no one to fight for, I tell him. Keep pressure around the skull and tell our victim he’s safe. Tell him Angie’s going to be okay.

You’re safe now, Sir. Angie’s going to be okay.

Drink this. Swallow these. Don’t ask me any more questions.

He watches me take my next bump.

Was that his?

I wonder if tonight’s the night it finally snows in Florida.