Drug Story

Myles Magallanes
Drug Story

My pen and paper’s constant scratching has reached a level of almost unbearable noise. I look back at my watch, dripping from my sweat, frozen in a hellish, drug deprived world. Waiting for brilliance, I glance at my paper surprised to see it mauled by my unsteady hand and my pen turned deadly weapon. I cannot and will not write in my current state. My mind is stretched and strung out, all the blood from my constricted veins has gone to my eyeballs making them bulge grotesquely like a murder victim. I know what I need to write, to survive, and turn back into Dr. Jekyll. Hyde is a suit that doesn’t fit, a shoe that is two sizes two small, my worst enemy, and my only friend *. I fidget with the few dollars I have in turn for pawning almost all of my belongings, money that should go to food and clothes and things that any other suburban clone would need to live. I realize at some point, I began smoking, smoke to me has become what I breathe in and out, and like breathing sometimes one forgets they are doing it. Besides my money, I have car keys. A way to Graceland, a ticket to personal salvation. I am a sex addict desperately screwing back to virginity. My mind and words are held hostage by an invisible man with a gun. He is squeezing tighter and tighter on my lungs, my veins, and my life. This invisible man is me; somehow I know this and sink into a deeper state of fear and hyperawareness. If I don’t leave right now, I will be frozen here forever and they will all surely find me. The cops, my bosses, my parents, they all know. They all know. The words bounce back and forth in my empty, base raped head. They all know. I must leave, every sober second as a base deprived skeleton leaves me venerable. I almost run to my car, forgetting to even close my door. I have nothing to steal anyway; a pawnshop somewhere has my entire living room and most of my parents’ lamps. I get on the freeway headed for the 213’s slums, adjusting somewhere in-between a rock and a hard place. The freeway to base land is the epicenter of doldrums. I organize my money again and again in my hand, making it drip with my insecure sweat.
Dilapidated houses and bars fill my view as I make my way around Crenshaw/ Slauson. It’s the only place in my world where I become aware of skin color. Any color in the maze of shelters and crack houses that makes up South Central Los Angeles means something far more sinister than the painted white fences of my suburbs. Gang graffitti entraps the entire area, providing signs of warning that I can’t read. Nobody smokes base because they are bored, and this is why. Looking for a crack dealer in the projects is a Russian roulette game that I have slowly mastered. The red and blue dividing lines have turned this place into urban warzone only white cops and white base heads bother with. Both are notorious and infamous, a projection of the distorted reflection of black on black crime. I am hyperaware that pale here is black in any other area code; all eyes are on me, even at the witching hour. Looking for a crack dealer in the projects is a game of Russian roulette, I think I have a better chance of dying trying to score than actually overdosing. Bass from some unseen gang car vibrates the South Side like footsteps from hells ghettos. I muse that I can never remember my connection’s name. I have an address, and I have money, most times that isn’t enough. I’m always seen as an outsider, worse yet, a cop.
I have no clue where I am. A bathroom on the edge of some slum becomes a haven as my logic deviates further and further from being logical. My childhood dreams have a funny way of manifesting themselves as a contontorted version of what they once were. I stare at myself in the mirror, past the grime and scratches of any town USA’s ugly alter ego. I can’t wait anymore, and I take a hit. For the umpteenth time I transform back to Dr. Jekyll. I am a fucking superman. And five minutes and thirty seven seconds I fly. Everything becomes clear and energized, as if I was electro charged with the world’s greatest batteries. I need to go home, clean my room and write. I feel like myself Post College, with the world at my fingertips instead of in my rearview mirror. I’m still flying. The drive back to normalcy is never a slow one, I am flying and running away chasing my high like my life depends on it.
This is hell, on a park bench in god knows where. The moment after being high is the farthest you can possibly be from being high again. Misery defines me; I question every aspect of my life and hate myself for what seems like hours. I am a bruised and battered victim of myself. The sun slowly begins to rise and end my umpteenth sleepless night. The warm rays and slowly gathering heat burn my eyes and make me sweat, like a night animal without a home. Time passes as groups jog and walk past, their footsteps kick against my fragile head. My senses are electrocuted into feeling again as I adjust to the morning. If I could transcend my physical body I could appreciate the beauty and rhythm of a city waking up at once to an unseen alarm.
“Hey!” I glance slowly and feebly to the direction of the noise.
A man in jogging gear is staring at me.
“Hey!” he yells again. I still have no idea who he is.
“Are you ok?” His brow furrows as I try to ignore him and mumble “I’m feeling sick.” It’s the best I can think of. He either doesn’t hear or doesn’t believe me, because his brow is still furrowed like a concerned father.
He puts his hand on my shoulder. His body language suggests that he already knows.
“I’ve been there buddy. I know what it’s like.” He pulls out some stupid, shiny trinket from beneath his shirt.
“Seven years clean.” He looks almost proud.
I scoff and look down. It’s almost pointless to say anything; he is one of a million generic quitters who become addicted to false pride and idols instead.
“All it takes is believing, I’ve been saved by believing man.” I begin to notice his cross as his look deepens.
“My church is open to everyone.” He emphasizes the everyone as if to say even a base head like me is welcome to pray.
“Just think about it.” He pulls out a piece of paper and writes information on it.
“Your live isn’t over.” He moves his arm away and continues jogging.
As soon as he is out of ear shot I slowly tear the paper apart. I don’t help from a cop, ex-junkie, Jesus freak anyway. I’m not a weak addict like he is.
The drive back to my house is filled with regret. The void that drugs fill is almost always empty. The what or why become irrelevant, to me it is the same as explaining genocide or countless other acts of self destruction of humankind. Ultimately, it always happens. Analysis of these acts sends me further and further into the tunnels of my own mind. The morning sun bakes everything on the road turning my car into a furnace. Sweat beads and my constricted veins make driving painfully slow. I glance in the mirror once again, and freeze in horror at the eyes that stare back at me. They bulge and pulse at a superhuman rate as I quickly turn back for one last fix. I turn abruptly, ignoring food, money, gas, or any other logic that should prevail *. Once again, I find myself on the endlessly slow track to baseland.