The Journey

(Dedicated to Mariposa, in honor of her dream.)

I

Wake up!

Out of the darkness and into the light, my entire life morphs before my eyes. I can feel the walls crushing in all around me pushing me forth to my destination. My warm, wet world is collapsing on top of me! My eyes open first: round, bulging, taking in the wide world before me. The world is small, but bigger then what I had known before—drier too. There is noise all around me: screeching and gasping for breath. I see a man clad in white, he’s touching my face, his slippery hands are pitifully cold.
“Push harder.” He screams then I hear another wail, this time painfully louder then the ones before. I cry out too, just to copy everyone else—besides, the flickering harshness of the neon light hurts my eyes.
“Congratulations Mrs. Jones… It’s a boy.” The man in white says. I am lifted up, I feel like I’m flying. A giant, beaming face awaits me.
“A boy, a boy.” She cries, tears running down her checks. Yes mother, I am a boy—please don’t cry—it’s not my fault, you know.

II

I cry now, like I have the past several nights in a row. It is dark all around me, small swinging shapes suspended above my head. They give me bad dreams sometimes but I can’t do anything about it because their out of arms reach.
“Put him to sleep.” I hear my father say, his voice a low mutter. Slob, why don’t you take care of me yourself? I can be bottle fed too. Mother doesn’t mind though, with a tired sigh she lifts her form out of bed and unbuttons her shirt, her nipples a feast to my delight.
I suck; the warm milk soothing my head, making me forget whatever thoughts that had first awoken me. I look over at the snoring form of my father and, suck all the more vehemently. Look, ha-ha! I get it all and you get none. I look back up at mother, my beady eyes glistening with joy as my chubby fingers grope around her nipple, as I press my teeth slightly around her flesh. Look mommy, I’m biting. She smiles, tired but filled with joy at this, her first and only son. With a kiss sets me back down and I fall asleep again.

III

“Gary what’s happened to you?” She asks in shock running over to inspect my torn overalls. It was my first day in school and, returning as I was, she was not at all pleased.
“Nothing.” I mumble, holding something behind my back. I had made her a Mache doll, but didn’t want her to see it.
“What is that behind your back?” She asks sternly. Fumbling I hesitate then shoot my hands out, casting my eyes down in embarrassment. The dolls leg is torn off and had been taped back on, the sweat from my dirty hands smudged all over it. “Why, it’s beautiful!” She exclaims, making me bubble over in delight. “Who’s it for?”
“You…” I reply, casting my eyes downward in embarrassment again.
“Why it’s gorgeous, I think I’m going to keep it forever.” She laughs hugging me. I smile again and put my little arms around her neck. Maybe now she’ll forget to be angry that I tore my overalls.

IV

Fight, fight, fight!

I swing, my fist hitting the eye of the other kid in front of me. He has a bloody nose already but he’s not as bad as I am. Blood runs from both my nose and my mouth, a black eye crowning my injury achievements. The other kids crowds around us, making the already claustrophobic hallway seem that much smaller, their faces painted in a sick sense of entertainment as they dance around like apes.
“What’s going on here?” We hear the old principle shout, causing a stop to the chanting.
“Th—th—their fighting,” one of the smaller kids squeak, pointing his fat finger at me and my opponent—I hate him… he always was a rat.
“Is that so? Come here young man we’re going straight to my office to call your mother.” He shouts, dragging me off by the ear. It wasn’t me; he was the one that started it. I feel like saying it but don’t, it would only make things worse. The pain shoots through my entire face, forcing tears into my eyes. Somehow, I can never walk fast enough to keep up with him. The principles office is a dingy, dirty looking place, filled with stacks of files that reach nearly up to the ceiling. I hate being there; the air smells too musty and makes me feel like vomiting. A cockroach runs along the floor and my entire soul feels like jumping up and squashing it. I don’t move though, I hardly even breathe. Moving only makes the principle madder.
“I’ve just spoke to your mother and she says your father is on his way to get you.” He drones his voice a solemn monologue. I groan inwardly, anything right now would be better then a lecture from my dad. “Until then I’m going to have a word with you… Honestly Garret Jones, this is the third fight this month.” Here we go again. I think, my eyes reverting to the cockroach on the floor. Its going to be a long time before my father comes back to take me home.

V

Drinks…people…music…weed. It’s my sixteenth birthday and my parents won’t be home for the weekend. A birthday is what you make it and so I decided to make mine fun. Several of my friends wanted to throw a party this weekend and I agreed to let them use my place. What the hell, you can have a birthday party and a normal party in one shot. Make’s it easier that way. Who cares about the mess or the hangover that is bound to ensue the next morning? Live for the moment and get smashed—tomorrow we die.The music is pulsating, nearly as intoxicating as the vodka itself. Bright disco lights flash throughout the living room, making everyone dancing seem to go in slow motion. A house was not made to hold thirty people and you can almost taste the sweat in one of those parties, watch it fly in little beads off the hair of the dancers. Chicks in tight clothing that reveals practically everything greet me, their eyes batting in suggestive ways. One or two others are on the kitchen table wearing nothing but thongs, their drunken swaying pitifully out of time with the music.
I walk down to one of the sofas and sit down, my drink still in my hands. I never liked dancing even though I was not too bad at it, but I liked starring at the girls more. One of them, a tanned blonde with a pretty face and nice full ass, leaves her friends and comes over to me, sitting down on the couch. We talk for a bit then she leans over and kisses me, the taste of her lips even better then the drink.
She gets up and, smiling, takes both my hands into hers. In a daze, she leads me upstairs to my room and, shutting the door behind her, pulls off her shirt. Her breasts are firm, perfectly shaped, and even more attractive under the quiet luminescence of the green lava-lamp by the side of the bed. I start towards her but with a laugh she pushes me down onto the bed and climbs up on top of me. She kisses me again, her tongue playing with mine as her hands reach for my belt. I smile and slide my hand up her skirt. Nothing can be better than this.

VI

“I don’t understand. You like me, I like you. What do you mean you wanna break up with me?”
“I just don’t think I want to be with you anymore.” She replies, anger contorting her face.
“But why not?”
“I just don’t.”
“Look, if it’s about not wanting to go to the prom with me its fine.”
“It’s not its just… I don’t know.”
“Fine bitch, be that way!” She gets out of the car and slams the door. It doesn’t matter if her house is two miles away or that it’s the middle of February. She’s too angry to notice. Hurt and confusion well up inside of me as I start the engine up again. Dear God, how do you do? I hate my life and want to die!

VII

The hot sun slides gracefully into the dismal, darkening horizon, displaying her last rays in a proud—yet useless—attempt to prolong her life. Sitting next to me on plain wicker chairs are my two best buddies: both with cheap cigarettes in their mouth and Corona’s in their hands, both watching the sunset with me. Outside we are calm and peaceful; inside our stomachs are a turmoil of nervous delight.
The band that we had sloppily put together after my breakup as a way to, “pay for college” was finally going somewhere. Last week a producer heard us as we played in a local bar and offered us his card saying that, “Talent like yours is on the way up.” What he saw in such a cliché metal band like ours I never knew—nor did I care to give any thought to it. All I knew was that we would finally be getting out of the town where I was born and raised and that, tomorrow, we would be driving a couple of days to reach L.A. for the beginnings of a statewide tour.
We are young, we are happy. Both my friends had lots of girls that they would have to say goodbye to but, inside, I know that it didn’t matter much to them. There would be plenty of Sheryl’s and Mary’s once we got to the big city… they would be hotter too.

VIII

“Dude… death is like… dead already.”
“Yeah dude, we need to fucking go into some more hard-core shit then just death metal. It doesn’t sell these days.”
“Fuck it, dude. Death is like… dead.”
Hearing those two when their high is always a trip in itself, especially when their talking about death. Damn it, for that matter I should be high already as well. They’d been pigs all night, keeping the hash all to themselves and not sharing with their best pal. It didn’t matter that much though, it was funnier to hear them when one was drunk and, God knows, I wasn’t going to share any of the whiskey with them.
What had started off as one tour led to a couple of records and, finally, an album. Now we were closing our second tour, somewhere on the east coast. I had already drunk too much that night to remember. Our style didn’t sell too well in the beginning so our manager made us get into Death Metal. It didn’t settle too well with the guys though because, when they were high, they thought it was going out of style. Coincidentally, they had been high nearly the entire trip.

“Hey man, did the deal work out in Orlando yet?” Jerry asked, finally passing the bong over to me.
“I dunna man, the manager was supposed to work it out on Friday but he’s been busy with the tour and all.” I reply, taking a long drag as the smoke wells up into my lungs.
“Fuck it… I’m going to pray he dies and I’ll write a song about it too.”
“Dude… death is like… dead.”
I lean back in the leather chair, watching as we pass by the trees on the highway. With each drag, the trees start to enter the bus, gyrating in a haphazard fashion before me, their leaves mingling with the modern art posters that cover the wall. I pass the bong over to Jerry again and shut my eyes. Then, taking a pen and paper from the cupboard I begin to write a new song that’s coming to my head. I think I’ll call it: Dance You Fucking Trees.

IX

I’m falling, I can feel it even though I close my eyes tightly, hoping it would go away. I know it will come but, somehow, I think that if I close my eyes it will take longer to happen. My face collides with the concrete and I feel blood, hot and gushing, run into my mouth. I don’t know if I’ve lost a tooth this time—if I open my eyes I know my face will hurt even more. One, two… yep there all here I suppose, all except the one you lost last time. I think, running my tongue across my gums.I look up, several steps above me is a fat Mexican guy wearing only a wife-beater and a pair of boxers. He’s still holding the baseball bat he had brought when he first decided to take me out of my room. So what if the rent is a day late. I’m supposed to have a bloody three days grace period!
“And the next time I say that you’re getting out, you’re getting out. Got that hommie?” He says in the nasal accent that a Mexican can only have if he tries too hard to be black. His son, a scrawny kid with a disgusting little smile on his face, appears behind his father with my stuff in his hand. With a nod of approval, he throws it beside me all over the filthy street. Then, without a word, they both turn and leave me alone.
I pick myself up off the ground, checking to make sure that my stuff is all in the bag. Most of it is, so I lift the bag off the ground and head off down the street. It’s too late to check into a hotel room and, even if it wasn’t, I didn’t have any money with me. The band got out of style a couple of years back and we flopped out. Jerry and Eddie went off to be hired to do gigs at bars and I was left to myself in south side Boston all alone.
There is a friend of mine that lives a few blocks away. He sold the band hash when we were still together and, perhaps he would still remember me. If he did, then maybe he will let me crash out at his place that night and smoke with him. At worse, there was the always the alleyway.

X

“Fuck it! Give me the money now!” I’m shaking, though I had done this before it always made me nervous. She was transfixed, too terrified of the gun placed at her temple to scream, but I couldn’t take that chance. She was young too—and pretty. If I was a pervert I would have taken more then just her money, but I wasn’t. A druggie and a mugger yes, but the thought of being a rapist sickened me.
She didn’t reply, only gulped again, thick beads of sweat running into her eyes. Damn it, I couldn’t wait too long. The scream that she had first let off when I placed the gun at her head was sure to have been heard and the cops would be here any second. “Give me the money!” I shouted again, cocking the gun. She didn’t say anything so I backhand her, a sickening snap ringing through the cold air as fist met her jaw. She fall’s to the ground and, stooping, I grab her purse. Quick, run, before the cops get here!

XI

I hate the sharp, slight pain that entered my arm each time. I couldn’t help it though; I crave what it gives me. I push down the cylinder, shutting my eyes as I sit in the garbage-filled alleyway. This is where I live, this is what I am. Thirty-three and I already look like a man of the age of fifty, my youthfulness wasted away.
I scoot back, underneath the sheets of metal and cardboard that formed the ceiling to my, “home.” Heroin is now my life, my breath, my sleep. I can’t dream without it. I can feel it now entering into my veins, the intense craving I’ve had for it since this morning slowly beginning to melt away. I can see everything at once and never miss a thing:

Birth, childhood, purity
The little girl that wore satin lace
Dragonflies and pinwheels
Watching football with the guys
Drunken sex for the first time

And finally… the dark, frightening void as I slip into my unconsciousness.

XII

“Hello, my name is Gary and I’m an alcoholic.” It’s funny how they all say that—like its some form of title or treasured greeting.

‘Hello alcoholic, fine day isn’t it?’
‘Why yes it is, thank you alcoholic.’

There’s nothing treasured about the meeting though, nothing special. My innards scream for a drink, for another shot of heroin. The only reason why I first started going to these things is to find a place to keep warm for a couple of hours. Sleeping at Denny’s wasn’t working out anymore. Now that I started though there was no turning back, I had to stay sober if I wanted to stay warm. Bloody well not a fair trade if they would have asked me! At least they tried to help bums like me with their problems and, once in awhile they would hand out hot meals and sets of razors too.

Clap, clap, clap. Yes I’ve stated the obvious, damn you! Stop clapping for me like it was such a hard thing to say and let’s get along with life already.

XIII

“Hello, what’s your name?”
“Akio.”
“Cute… want to go out for a drink sometime?”
“No.”
“O.K I was just asking.”

She gives me the finger and turns away. It just proves that, even if a guy dresses halfway decently and tries to be nice he still can’t get a girl interested; even if it is a Japanese ditz that’s screwed every other guy in your neighborhood.

XIV
HIV is a sick, strange abbreviation. Goes to show what caused it in a man, he got it all because of His Interest in Vagina. Whether or not it should stand for that though, it didn’t change the fact that I now have it and, what was worse, it has blown full over into AIDS.
Now that I have it I can’t think, can’t feel—I don’t care for that matter either. I can’t care less if I was warm or not so I stopped going to the AA meetings. Going to them was only bore and made me feel inferior anyways. The only thing I cared about was heroin. If I try to think of anything else it hurts so bad that I cry for hours. Blessed Bliss! Now I can indulge myself in drugs even more then before because I don’t have to worry about spending what little money I have on girls.
My next fix is coming that night. Shawn will probably be there at the railroad tracks by nine but I’ll be there early just to make sure. Until then I always have my alcohol and a beat up guitar that I had found in the dumpster nearby. That should keep me busy for a while. I think, the sting of the whiskey pouring down my raw throat making me shut my eyes. With a sigh, I place my fingers on the guitar and begin to play a bitter tune: one that reminds me of better days.

XV

I can feel the walls of my mind crushing in all around me pushing me forth to my destination. My miserable world is collapsing on top of me! Out of the darkness and into the light I walk, my eyes squinting at the luminescence before me. It is bright, brighter then even the sun, and warm. I can’t ever remember feeling this warm.
I remember… God I remember! The shot had been too strong for me. I look behind and see myself lying on the floor, pale and lifeless. The newspaper sheets I had wrapped myself in before I streamlined still clinging to my form. The eyes of my corpse are open, a sickening glaze over them as a cat stands on my chest, licking his paws. I remembered the pain, the utter pain that pounded my mind to dust before I passed out. It is gone, gone away, and now only a strange emptiness remains.
When I face the light, the emptiness that covers my soul disappears. Without even wanting to, I look towards it. It’s almost magnetic, drawing me to its source even though I’m not walking towards it. Even if I was walking away from it there would be no stopping, it’s too powerful for me to run away from.
When I was little, my mother taught me about God and I went to church a few times for Sunday school. I vaguely recall it and cross myself hastily, my mind trying to recall the scattered verses that I had learned in my youth. It doesn’t matter whether or not you remember them. I hear a voice say. It is time to come home. I smile, as I hear this; its one of the few genuine smiles I can ever recall making. Home… that’s a word that I thought was long lost from me. Shutting my eyes I fling myself towards the light and let it envelope me. Out of the darkness and into the light, I know the pain is gone. I know that I’ll soon be home.