DRUGS AND MADNESS

The days after Esperanza cuts Joey down - he spirals downward into destructive behavior

Blurry, gloomy days pass me by.  My routine becomes dominated by the whole panorama of suffering and longing that is apparently the human condition. Every night I come home from The Fox Hole, and laconically wait for my parents to go up to bed. Prowl silently up the attic stairs to my sister’s bedroom, where they’re dead asleep, and snatch Maryanne’s Eagles album, Desperado. Listen intently to Desperado, and Tequila Sunrise, in the darkness of the living room. Maybe twenty-times, maybe twenty-five. I don’t know. Night after night. I want more from those songs. I need more. I need answers. Every night, I hope tonight is the night it all becomes clear to me. Then I haul it back up to the attic, placing it exactly the same way I found it. I would never admit to liking the Eagles to my sisters, of course. No way. To them, I trash the Eagles. White hillbilly music, I call it. Totally uncool. Nor would I admit it to anybody else – except Esperanza, and only because  she loves their song, Hotel California. Nothing much alleviates the violent B&E (breaking and entering) of my soul, though.

I buy a spliff from my stoner dishwashing partner, Marc, at The Fox Hole. He’s known to have the most excellent stuff this side of the Yukon. First time I ever actually buy a joint, but fuck it! If it makes me feel better, then it’s worth it. Tonight, I smoke it up walking home through the desolate streets, and now again in the morning on the way to school, too. I don’t want to smoke with anybody, or talk to anyone, either. The next day I go to buy another joint, but Marc say’s this one’s on the house. Says he can get me some killer Jamaican, and some serious hash, too.  I tell him I’ll think about it.  

So, I’m on my way home after work, and I’m kinda stoned already, because me and Marc sparked up while we were doing the dishes. Then we drank a couple of Heinekens we stole from the basement, and now I toke up again. The wind is whipping up something fierce tonight, battering the creaky tree branches into a howling frenzy.  I’m puffing - deep, hearty tokes of that comforting Hawaiian, stokes up a nice warm fire inside my chest. Going down smooth, too, not like last night when I was choking my ass off. The mind starts to wander now, it wants to meander along on its own little road trip. Suddenly, the branches become sinister shelters. Behind any tree trunk could be a debaucherous villain -laying in ambush mode…waiting…waiting…

Goosebumps rise up and down my arms and neck. I can feel the presence of pure evil lurking nearby, so I surround my neck with my upturned collar, hoping to fend off the upcoming barbarianism.  

Steady.  Steady. Stay sharp, I try to reason with the mind, but the mind doesn’t want to hear any of that.  Onward I traipse, caution in every footstep. I step haltingly, cautiously into the icy night, paranoid that any footprint forward may be my last. What’s that noise? Uh oh. It could be anyone – anything - crouching behind that looming oak tree.  Maybe even Mr. Sulu. Mr. Sulu from Star Trek?! Oh shit. Ha-ha-heh. Mr. Fucking Sulu!  Maybe he’ll Kung Fu me to the neck - Haang-Yaaa! I can’t stop laughing now - freakin’ hilarious, can’t breathe…oh, what a fucking high! I gotta get some munchies-munchies! Three Musketeers bar. Gotta get one…no-fuck that! Three – three - four - Three Musketeers bars!  Massive craving. I turn down Third Avenue…must have Three –

Cumberland Farms! Yeah! Fat Jim -here I come! Whoa! As I enter the store, Fat Jim is immersed in the Bible, the wooden cross on his leather necklace prominently hanging on his white polyester short-sleeved shirt.

“Hiya Jim!” I greet him with a totally mental grin. I haven’t been here since the window shattering incident. Fat Jim grimaces in a very un-Christian-like manner.

I’m way too stoned to keep a straight face, and I’m giggling dementedly. He frowns, scowls, and goes back to his Bible, but my focus is on those Three Musketeers bars. I could afford to buy a couple, but I just want to fuck with Fat Jim. I want to pocket them. I pace down the aisles now, picking up Aunt Jemima’s Buckwheat Pancake Mix, and a jar of Marshmallow Fluff. I’m scrutinizing the ingredients as if they are of great interest to me. Waiting for my chance.  He spies my every move, one eye on the Bible, the other on me. As if on cue now, Mrs. Acker wobbles chaotically into the store, pulled mercilessly by her yapping little dog, Fritz.  

“Oh dear Jesus, thank God you’re still open. I never thought I was going to make it! She gasps and wheezes.

“Phew…just let me catch my breath…”

“Fritz, for the love of God, will you stop that infernal barking! I need a jar of mayonnaise – Hellmann’s - Mr. Jim…”

I see my opportunity. Fritz is racing around in circles, his leash getting caught on everything near him. I head back to the refrigerator with my other items, and pull out a quart of Cumberland Farms Grade A milk, laboring my way back to the counter, my arms full. Suddenly, my legs become ‘accidentally’ tangled up in Fritz’s leash. I careen back and forth like a drunken circus clown on stilts, juggling the quart of milk like it’s some lethal game of hackey-sack. Fritz whirls around in frenzied circles, and finally, I smash into the candy bar rack. The milk, pancake mix, and a cache of Snickers bars, Clark bars, and the coveted Three Musketeers bars, all fly into a sort of slow motion orbit. Fat Jim’s and Mrs. Acker’s eyes light up. The milk pirouettes through the atmosphere, finally plummeting to the floor with a loud SPLAT! Spraying everyone and everything in its circumference, I roll around on the floor, collecting as many Three Musketeers bars as I can, while stuffing them into my pockets.

Curses. Squeals. Yelps. Fritz furiously shaking the liquid from his tiny body.

A livid, milk-drenched Fat Jim shakes his fist angrily at me, as I get up and prance out the door, contented with my acquisitions.  

“Be gone, ye heathenish perpetrator of the condemned!”

“Ye heathenish perpetrator of the condemned?”

Fat Jim has obviously overdosed on that Bible.I roar with laughter at that scene all the way home, the picture of Fat Jim and his glasses covered with milk. Ah, that Three Musketeers bar tastes good! Yeah.