In a Year...

 

 

Addiction

 

"We all have our addictions," she said with a voice that was better suited to a girl of twelve. They were in a shithole diner, which the health department had already closed three times. He ordered the chocolate milkshake as he always did. She always ordered coffee.

She rubbed his inner thigh with her foot. Her tattered, black sneaker pressed uncomfortably into his groin. She grinned at him with a child-like innocence. He shifted back into the hard plastic seat trying to find a better position in to sit in. Her smile grew.

His head tipped back, and she watched his throat work. She withdrew her foot, playing the innocent tease once again. "If you think about it," she continued, "an addiction is nothing more than a way to destroy yourself, and we’re all constantly trying to ruin ourselves. Some of us just choose more successful methods." She smiled again. A nervous habit.

He smiled back, self-consciously. He studied her young features, and wondered what exactly she was trying to tell him. It seemed vitally important to her to communicate her idea, but she seemed to have problems getting to her point. He waited to see what she would say next, while she seemed to be waiting for a reply. The silence stretched, and finally he nodded blankly, feeling like a complete moron for not knowing what he was responding to. You are a brain-dead fool, he told himself.

She took a sip of her coffee. It was cooling slightly, and the bitter flavor was coming through the two creamers and three teaspoons of sugar, which she had added to mask the foul taste. She sighed, and gulped the rest of it down. The price we pay for our vices, she thought to herself.

"Addiction comes in many flavors," she added. "Some of them aren’t so easy to identify as addiction, because they aren’t of a chemical nature. I mean, you can go to AA or rehab if you’ve got a drug addiction. Any doctor will give you a prescription if you need to quit smoking. But, what if your addiction is something less common? What if you like to bite your nails? At first glance, it seems to defy the definition I previously established for addiction. It doesn’t seem very self-destructive. If you bite your nails, what’s the worst that could happen to you? Is it really going to ruin your life? But, what if you lose a job opportunity because you have hideous hands? It’s self destructive in a very pussy way." She looked at him from the corner of her eye.

He looked back, and once again nodded. He wasn’t sure if he agreed with her. He once again wondered why she had brought this up. He wondered what difference the meaning of addiction could have.

He preferred to think about things that could potentially impact himself or those around him. He read the newspaper, and watched the television, looking for stories, which might change his life in some way. He was a very cerebral person. Prided himself on this fact. He didn’t let the whirlwind of chaos control him.

She seemed to be nearly the polar opposite. She had once told him that she enjoyed jumping off the cliff over and over again, as long as she had a choice in the matter. It had taken him a while to figure out what she had meant.

Jumping off the cliff, he thought, was a metaphor for completely immersing herself into whatever she was doing. Once you leap, it’s too late to worry about whether you’re going to splat.

"So, everyone has addictions?" he asked, just to keep the conversation rolling. He didn’t like the silence stretching so thinly between them.

"Everyone," she answered. "We all have a desire to destroy that which we can’t control, and there is always that in ourselves that will not obey our conscious mind. We run out of control, so we destroy. We destroy and become more out of control. It’s a sad, sad cycle," she concluded wryly.

"I’ve never known anyone who didn’t have an addiction," she added.

"I don’t have any addictions," he replied.

The corners of her mouth curled up at him, and one eyebrow rose toward her hairline.

The waitress returned and asked if they wanted anything else. Both declined, and the waitress left their bill.

"You know," she said suddenly, "I hate when people call their bills their checks. You know, ‘Check please.’ I abhor that. I just don’t understand how they can get those two confused. The check giveth money, and the bill taketh away." She looked over at him to see if he got the joke. His brow was furrowed, and he had a look of consternation on his face, but when she caught his eye, he gave her a small, reassuring smile.

They paid, and left the establishment. They turned right out the door onto the heated summer sidewalk. She grabbed his hand, and awkwardly, they intertwined their fingers as they walked.

"So, what do you want to do now?" he asked, just as she began, "Where do you want to go from here?" He smiled at her, while she giggled lightly.

"Want to go back to my place?" he asked. "We could continue our discussion about the nature of addiction." He wasn’t sure why he had added the last, except she seemed as though she had something important she was trying to communicate, and didn’t know exactly the right words to use. He thought that perhaps talking it out would aid her in forming the correct thoughts.

"Sure," she said, hoping that not much talking would occur.

They continued walking for about a block, and he guided her around the corner where they walked for another two blocks. They arrived at his door. He led her inside, and she sat in his revolving office chair. He looked at her and bored his bushy brows together while smiling.

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She left the next morning, with her panties in a ball in her pocket. There was a slight lift to the corners of her mouth, and she didn’t wince from the light of the sun as she normally did. She walked the four blocks to her apartment complex, and went upstairs. She unlocked her small studio, and went inside.

She lay down on her loveseat, and went almost immediately asleep.

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The next time they saw each other, they went to a park at midnight. They talked about art and literature, and their lives growing up. Hers had been filled with poetry readings and classical music. His with a drug dealing mother and her parade of boyfriends. He envied hers. She took hers for granted.

Together on the small hill in the park, they grew to know each other in ways that their previous experiences with each other had only hinted at. He so desperately wanted to know things. He was extremely intelligent, though ignorant of many things. He had the capability to understand complex concepts, but had never been exposed to them. She loved that about him. He had an eagerness about life that her cynicism denied her. He denied the life which fate had chosen for him and was forging his own path.

She went home that night with a feeling of innocence, which she hadn’t felt since childhood.

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It was a Friday. She went over to his apartment, prepared to attempt to make him go out with her to a club, which she frequented. She wore a black skirt with a black sweater, which was practically a uniform for her. Her hair was straight down around her shoulders, parted in the middle. She wore a dark reddish brown lipstick. She walked up to his door and rang the bell, waiting for him to answer.

He came to the door in a faded brown t-shirt and a pair of khaki pants, which was, similarly, almost a uniform. He looked weary, and wiped his hand across his face. He shook his head.

"Come to the club with me," she said in a bright, expectant voice, which she coupled with a, hopefully, winsome smile.

He shook his head again. Her smile faltered. "Please," she said, knowing she was sounding slightly desperate. Again he shook his head.

"I have stuff to do. I’ve slacked on my reading and writing. I can’t do that. I need to keep exercising my mind so it doesn’t go away. I can’t waste my time hanging out with you all the time." Her face fell. She turned and walked away quickly.

"No hug?" he called out jovially.

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She rushed the two blocks home and ran up the stairs where she collapsed on her futon mattress. Hugging herself, she rocked back and forth with her back against the corner of the wall.

She gradually calmed down enough that she could unroll from the ball, which she had become and grab one of the blades, which were carelessly left around. They seemed to be everywhere in her tiny apartment, always within easy reach.

She studied it for about two seconds, the time it took her to argue herself into it, then dragged it across the top of her upper thigh. High enough so that no one would find it. Again. Again. She let the blood flow down her thighs making sticky trails, which left tiny dot stains on the futon mattress. The mattress didn’t concern her. It had many similar marks.

She threw the blade across the room. She hated it. She hated the cutting and couldn’t stop it. It was almost as if it were an automatic response from her body when her brain received any sort of negative stimulus. Everyone had their addictions, and she had a multitude of them.

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Three days went by before she allowed herself to go back to his place. She rang his buzzer.

He came out in yet another t-shirt and pair of khakis. Something prickled in the backs of her eyes and her stomach lurched.

"Why didn’t you stop by," he asked, itching his chin through his goatee.

"You said I was a waste of time," she said through gritted teeth and slanted eyes. Her mouth turned down at the corners, and she wanted only for him to invite her inside so she could lay her head on his chest and remember what it had been like at the park.

He sighed. "I didn’t mean waste of time. I just need to spend time studying and writing. I can’t let myself get behind, because I’ll never be able to catch up." His hand caught a lock of hair that threatened to poke her eye and slipped it behind her ear. "Are you coming in," he asked.

She stepped inside, and looked up at him with liquid eyes. "I’m not a waste of time," she questioned, looking for a positive confirmation. He shook his head. Her stomach unclenched and she hugged him tightly to her, fitting her head inside the hollow between his shoulder and neck. She kissed it, smelling him. The musty testosterone scent, mixed with the sweet aroma of soap. I’m getting sappy, she thought to herself laughingly.

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She left, once again, in the morning. She cuddled with herself on the couch, half-sleeping, remembering being held in his arms all night, while she waited for the alarm to go off. At one point, while she was almost awake, he lifted her head and placed it on his chest.

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When she came home that night, she found him waiting for her outside the security door of her building.

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When she got out of work the next day, she headed directly for his home.

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"I’m going to trip tonight with some friends," she told him one evening.

"I’m not," he replied while trying to read a book. He looked up. "I don’t want to baby sit you either."

"Fine," she said. "Do you want to hang out with my friends before we dose?"

They found themselves in her apartment, a young man with Buddy Holly glasses and tattoos sitting on her couch, and a tall willowy girl wearing all black in the chair in front of her computer. She and he sat on her futon mattress, she fitting herself along his body like a cat.

The boy in glasses was showing off his tattoos to the girls. "This one’s Blondie, only with spikes coming out of her head," his voice trailing off at the end. The artwork was extremely well done, and both girls admired it.

The boy lifted his shirt to show his shoulder. "How’d you get this, Jason," she asked, her finger trailing a line that was a combination of a scar and blue ink mark.

Jason laughed the weak stoner’s chuckle; "Some guy stabbed me with a tattoo gun."

He was amazingly silent, and she stood up. She pulled on his hands until he followed her example, and she led him into the hall.

"Why are you being so quiet," she asked, her brow furrowed.

"Don’t trip tonight," he replied. "Come back to my place. Let them stay here and trip together. Be with me tonight." His eyes were pinched, and she ran her finger over his jaw, hoping it would make it unclench.

"I can’t," she answered. "I haven’t spent any time with Jessie in forever, and Jason’s over here. I’ve got to be with my friends too." She still ran her finger along his stubbled jaw.

"Fine," he said. "I’m going home."

"Are you mad at me?" she called as he walked down the hall to the stairs.

"No," he yelled back over his shoulder. "But I will be if you sleep with him."

Astonished, she opened the door, and walked back into the apartment, where her friends were waiting for her, pills in a pile on the floor being divided out.

"Where’d he go?" Jessie asked, while scooping up a handful of the small, red tablets.

"Home," she replied, taking her own dose into her hand.

"Jason already started," Jessie said giggling. She looked over at Jason who was chewing on his own handful of pills. "He’s already had twenty of them," Jessie added.

"He’s chewing them?" she asked.

Jason nodded. "Makes them digest quicker," he replied, his words already slurring.

She grabbed a bottle of water, and dumped her own pills into her mouth in one motion. With a great swig of water, she downed them all in one swallow.

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She found herself wandering outside. She could feel her feet walking walking walking, the rhythm a constant comfort, letting her mind forget about her body. Her mind forgetting and her body guiding her. It knew where she wanted to go.

His door was open, so she walked in.

He looked up, his mouth open in surprise; his hand on his chest like an old woman caught unaware. "Jesus Christ," he gasped. "You scared the shit out of me."

"I had to go," she said in a light as air child’s voice. "He was rubbing his knife on my face, and on Jessie’s face, and she licked it, and I think he wanted to have sex with us, so I left." Her voice was doing an odd singsong, which, like her walking, gave her floating mind comfort. Her body talked and her mind floated. Her mind floated above her body watching and recording and experienced what her body did. The strobing and grace. But her mind floated.

He sighed. "Can I stay here tonight?" she asked.

"Do what you want," he said.

"I want to stay here with you," she said. Her voice. It was a comfort. The rhythm lulling her mind into the air.

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She woke up and he was sitting at his computer, writing.

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She woke up, and he was at his computer sleeping.

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She woke up and he was missing.

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She woke up and put her shoes on. Her body had some lingering effects. Every movement was infinitely important and graceful, it seemed. She opened the door, and stood on his porch, seeing him sleeping on a couch, which he had dragged from the curbside.

She kissed his cheek and walked down the steps, carrying herself to her own apartment, where she slept.

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"I told my mom about you," he said without looking up from his book.

"What’d you tell her?" she asked.

"I told her about the night you tripped," he replied with a smirk. "She flipped out," he added.

"You told your mother about your new girlfriend’s drug use?" she asked incredulously.

"I thought she’d think it was cool, her being in jail for selling crack and all," he said with that same sour smirk.

She sighed and shook her head.

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She sat in front of his computer typing. "I don’t think this is going to work out," he said from behind her.

"What’s that?" she asked.

"Us," he answered. "I don’t think we’re going to work out." He said nothing else.

Her mind tried to process the information, and found it lacking. "Why not?" she finally choked out.

"I can’t live life like you," he replied. "You’re burning me out. You do things that I can’t be a part of. There’s too much about you that scares me." He went silent again.

"Is it the drugs?" she asked. "I can stop using them. It’s no big deal. Hallucinogens aren’t addictive. It’s just for fun."

"It’s the drugs and your life and your philosophies and sometimes, you’re just too intense."

She could feel tears slipping down her face, but that seemed secondary. She was linking together the words. She was putting them together into cognitive sentences. Linking the sentences into complete thought forms. He. Doesn’t. Want. Me.

Her mind rebelled. She calmly walked out, silently. He followed her to the edge of the porch. When she continued on, he called out, "Will you be ok." Silently, she walked on.

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She walked to her apartment, tears dried up. She looked around, and saw blades, was disgusted. She grabbed a pen. She grabbed a notebook.

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Jessie was crying when she went to see him. "They found a note," she said with salty tears running down her cheeks. "They found a note, but no one knows what it means. She left a note. She wanted someone to know why. But we don’t know what it means." Awkwardly, he put his arms around her. "Her sister is taking the body back to Michigan. They’re going to bury her next to her mom," she added.

He licked his lips. He had moisture under his eyes, and his constricted throat ached, but he asked, "What did it say?"

Jessie began crying harder. She pulled a folded up piece of paper from her jeans pocket and handed it to him.

It was a copy of a piece of notebook paper. The faint lines still showed through the copy. The hand was messy, as if hurried, but he recognized it as hers. The creases were deep and fragile, as if they had been folded and unfolded over and over. In his mind’s eye, he could see Jessie studying the note, trying to decode the mystery as to why.

Written on the paper. Written. Written on the paper were the words, "Who would have thought of all my addictions, the most dangerous one would be the one that brought me the most joy."

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Copywrite 2002 Trudy Smock