Ink

         I want to write again. I want to not belong to myself for just those few moments. When does it stop, where does the inspiration go. Perhaps to a new love, a new passion, some renewed interest, or simply pass into memory, gradually. Twelve Steps. Absorbed into whatever mystic misunderstood sense lay above the worlds of irrational thought. It’s December, the bitter ruse of mother earth, gai. Winter swallows everything, but everything’s not dead. There is ever present that valiant struggle, evolution, adaptation. The genius dies, and there will be no one to mourn him. Misinterpreted and misunderstood, this is my story.
         I have suddenly remembered where I am. There is no one here, and so I have my world. One might say blissfully alone. Cigarette smoke hangs loose off the top shelf of my desk, sensual and bittersweet. I went out today, outside into the waiting world. It was brilliant. The overpass at night, man made goliath, climbing omniscient and marvelous out of the shadows and squall, cast by the undertow, the rejection of social evolution. There is something absent and warm about these streets, no expectations. Deliciously afraid, I am silent when I go. Always alone, abandoning false gestures and demands of motive. I wallow out of the cesspool of sameness, begging to fit in with the rest of the individual world, craving this concept of Unique. Every person under these concrete legs is unmatched and unfortunate by their own design, belonging to whatever demons laze under the decay. In the end they are all the same, banded together, feeding each other. This is the comfort of an inner city ecosystem, you never die alone. There is no longer a you to die, only flesh and bone expired. Dust to Dust. The ash from a cigarette lay long and withered in the ashtray, it looks clean, untouched and silent. Calm. I break it, clinging to that last drag. There is nothing, the cool stale taste of wood.
         I have haphazardly organized a too small work station. The various compartments of the roll top desk are undone with papers long faded and refused. Assorted coasters dotted with Styrofoam cups of coffee, always black and always cold, whatever closest will do. There is a plain wooden chair where I sit maladjusted with pillows I have placed to relieve the spine. Still, I have developed a stoop, a deformation. Adapted to a life time hunched around barely discernable scribbles, and all the lyrical nonsense I have expelled. Crouched down to the lines cut on the top of the toilet seat, almost invisible to the naked eye. Not to mine. They stand clear in every flicker of shine, dull sparkling grains of desperately needed inspiration, a hint of feeling. Even now, I look at the hard rock resting on a CD case. Hayden. I stare, and am conscious of the shape of an expired and exhausted credit card in my pocket. Still waiting. I choose to defy it. Only I know it’s there to run to, as reality threatens nothing but that sweet chemical drip will save you to forget. There is no denial. Before you face up, there will be nothing to deny. Cocaine makes this all make sense. And then as if I had never been aware, I fall back into the abyss.

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         The long yellow rubber chain, leading to an overbearing overhead light, has been all but destroyed by something or someone; I am too tired to wonder. Always so tired. All these older places have overhead lighting, sporting gaudy overbearing domes, bulbous against chalky pitted ceilings. The light bulbs have all but one been broken; improvising jagged makeshift pipes destined to become disposable blackened shards. Shrapnel among bitter ruins. Junkies hate light anyways, the inevitable bustle of day that falls between the binge. They lay exhausted temporarily abided by the night’s forgotten sins. There are greater concerns than poor lighting.
         Crystal has taken her son somewhere. She goes by Roxie down at Atmosphere massage parlor, how cliché. Real classy broad. Slings an assortment of shit on the side; Dope, Ice, Coke, Crank, Ecstasy, Ativan, Ketamine, and Ether. Euthanasia for those who tempt mortality, and Methadone for all the undercover junkies who can’t get their fill at the clinic. She does free kink shows for an MD and his buddies, and he keeps her well supplied. She had a son too young with a good man. He was shot twice, in his own home, having invaded the privacy of a couple kids high on crank looking for cash, leaving her with an infant and no money. Jaded by some strangers justice.
         She keeps Ryan in his room most of the time. The doorknob fastened with bungee cords to the top of the stairs. At seven he never cries. Sedated by whatever mommy slipped into his individual microwavable Kraft dinner. Another week gone, lost on the edge of ecstasy. Residual pangs of yesterday’s drug, arriving in a starchy burst to the brain. Maybe she’s ended it. Euthanasia, no, it's harder to come by, she would have used ether. Easy enough. Maybe his little heart couldn’t take it anymore. Mercifully deceased, and unsung. No one seems to even notice, only that crystal is gone. That ready available source disappeared. Reality looms and everything comes alive. What to do, wait? Go forth and seek alternate feeds?
         Robin, the resident meth junkie is in the kitchen on the phone. Jonesing, searching the shrill metal ring for an answer on the other side of a greasy earpiece, over and over again. He was a dancer, and was only nineteen when he was blindsided by a drunk driver, lost is paradise. He lost half an arm and chose morphine over hope. Now he gives blowjobs behind the Joy Ho kitchen and shoots into blackened sores on the community couch, a rigid figure, misplaced on a melted metal wreck. It’s sad, there is no greater word, no elaborate emotional display of intelligence, only the simple sound of sad. The pure nature of the word is sweet and lingers on the tongue. He was once someone alive, something beautiful and young. Not this shell of a boy, snorting grit and ash off the end of a key, perhaps belonging to whatever life was there. A last reminder to the cruel nature of chance. We can’t all be lucky. You are all statistics.
         Robin is sweet, trusting. Heroine and amphetamine obsessions, have maintained the silent dignity dancers possess. Tall and limber, he flows smoothly through a room taking nothing with him, modestly awkward. Now he looks frantic, having lost in desperation the vestiges of the boy left behind; Crystal was already gone when he arrived. No one knows when she left, or about the fragile bundle of child she carried in her arms. I know, because I have been here all along. I savor this misplaced secret. But not even I know when she will return.
         If she is going to work, we know it will be approximately nine hours minus the time since departure. If she is going to Joy Ho for red bull and rolling tobacco they know she will be about fifteen minutes. They know how long it takes her to fuck, sleep, shit and shower. This isn’t on the agenda. Hide the stash.

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I love classical music and cocaine. The perfect drug for the sophisticate class. Aristocratic black and white, cocaine dreams of dignity. I pretend I am one of them, I am. In this class, I am the upper cast. The least depraved and disheveled, a glimmer of something almost new among the lost and unanswered souls below, under the rest of the sleeping world. It’s quiet again. How long have I been lost on this thought? If only the thoughts hidden inside the mind, could somehow translate themselves in some semblance of order, and become material

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         Four am. Crystal is back. Without Ryan. She looks tired. She wouldn’t be back without him. They would keep her at the hospital and call the police. She left him. Lifeless and crumpled on the concrete emergency bay at saint Ashford medical center. She hasn’t told them to come see her here. Ha. An unexpected belch of laughter crackles through the room. No one reacts. They are all looking at her. Waiting for the o.k, that signal lift of the head. She sits down with a cigarette and asks for a light, as the room itself seems to sigh relief.
         We are all too oblivious to have taken in Ryan’s existence; I don’t think that anyone even notices that he is gone. I would like to play Sherlock. I don’t know where to start, so I give up. There was never a beginning to find. It has only been two days since he left the house. Will anyone ever know he was here, barely living, but still alive? I know, and she knows. Someone else as well must, or maybe not. Individuals are infinitesimal pieces in a global ecosystem. Insignificant in the idea of a universe. The majorities have never counted, and never will, they simply cannot. Only the great will leave themselves behind, emblazoned upon the minds of generations to come. Ryan isn’t one of us; he wasn’t great, or even extraordinary in any way. Only misfortunate, living in limbo as perhaps the smallest piece. He wasn’t dying of aids in Africa. Not a victim of genocide in the east. In their misery, these individuals make a mark, and in their collective squalor are mourned by the world. Weighed in worth by their own suffering. Pestilence takes its fifteen minutes of fame. Slowly savoring each drop, and then over at once, having given birth to the next miserable pandemic. Red and Raw, bleeding into the lives of men. Ryan’s torment was lost to the deaf ears of six famished souls in an unlit room. None of who suffers greatly, mumbling an unwitting eulogy of muted thoughts, and the hollow reprieve in intentions of curiosity. And even these poor creatures, decayed before death, will each be glorified in his addiction, a warning to suburban school children and parents alike.
         I should go, I know I should. But my eyes are fixed on that door. Scuffed and dirty, it sounds out to me, something dangerous, something delicious. I am frightened by it all. This sudden rush, adrenaline. More lines. I cut them hard and fast, choppy and unforgiving to chapped skin and raw flesh. Is he in there? I want to look, so bad to look. I know it. She’s left him to die here. At home with the people who loved him, the perfect place. She knows no one will go in that room. At least she’s bought herself a little time. But what comes after that. Maybe he is fine. I don’t know. It’s painful and panicked trying to recall anything at all. So I wait, I wait for it to come in words. More lines.
         I should run away from whatever truth I believe I possess. I will, go home. I have a home. One of the few lucky enough to maintain a certain distinction within addiction. A genius trapped in a morally corrupt era. No profound truths to discover, nothing left by brilliant fore fathers, to claim as further insight and hope to the masses of our generation. An intellect left to rot in the expanding chaos that is our pathetic universe. Expansion is not evolution. We, as humans, have lost. You fail to evolve, you fail to survive. Our extinction by the divine hand of Man. I cannot leave; I must prove what I already know by some demented hiccup in reality. When it falls quiet I will look. Outside, the skeletal frame of a degenerate fire escape twists arthritically up, through the sulfur yellow of a street light. So much beauty. Lost in this moment, I can feel my mind start to fall.

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         There is a hairline fracture in my window, reminiscent of an unintended injury, the heat of passion, something to regret. I move to the window, away from my desk and all the ideas that are never to come. The delicate lace of frost stalls my finger, before wielding to the heat of touch, and slowly I feel the cold as I trace across this strange mark. It stretches across towards the left hand corner, a skeletal division between what lies beneath, and what is to be found. Labored breaths have melted a cruel looking hole in the icy pane. There isn’t much to see, another brick wall. A dizzy snowfall comes alive for but a moment, and my mind dulled, has missed it. For this I imagine my sorrow, as long ago were wasted the last real tears I was to cry.
         Outside the air is tight; I can feel each cautious breath trace its way through chapped nostrils, a stinging reminder, and into my chest. Weak lungs greedily drink in oxygen, and I am conscience of this simple fact before releasing hurried jets of silver steam. I am meeting Fredrick for coffee down at Jax, we need to talk about the new book, and I suspect treatment. They all pretend to know me, and to understand. I am a child; I need to be told when to eat, when to choose, when to sleep, when to care, when to try, when to start, and when to write. What to write is left to me.
         “I know your having a hard time, and I hate that we have to do this now. But there are some problems with the text you’ve submitted. It’s, well…impossible. You know that?”
         Half a question, half prompt. Staring out at the dirty crust of snow clinging to the underside of the Freddy’s turquoise ‘98 cavalier, I can feel the desperation of his look through his voice. It’s begging me to say something, anything, as long at its yes. So I say nothing. He backs away, and starts again. The clump has fallen, broken into portions of polluted mousse over the surrounding ground. Light and distinctly creamy under foot in contrast with the hard pack and hidden pitfalls of over walked paths, a thousand journeys to the same unsatisfactory conclusion.
         “I mean you disappear for a month and…have you seen yourself? God damnit! Are you even listening?”
         When to answer? I search for any sign of indignation, nothing. His face is frustrated, jaw slack, exhausted. A delicate brow clenched, over-exaggerating the well-hidden hurt inside plain brown eyes, loosens as I meet his stare. When will they stop helping? When will I cross that line, the point of no return? Its not tonight. All of a sudden I am a tangle of arms as he sweeps around me, all too easily. I am smaller now, there is no longer time, nor room for food, and so I do not eat. You starve the body, you feed the mind, I have disposed of one of the fundamental needs, primitive and obligatory, I am invincible. Before I am able to put my arms around him, he is withdrawn, accepting my simple stumbled apologies.
         “I love you, we all love you. Believe that and call me tomorrow, I can’t do this tonight.”
         Goodbye comes with a half hearted smile and a brisk walk to the car. Another chunk of slush falls as he slams the door. All. The word spits at me, leaving the bitter taste of someone else’s disappointment tight against my tongue. All of them have already forgotten about the whole ordeal. It has passed into a common concern to be discussed over light refreshments, before the inevitable change of conversation, everyone having displayed their incredible ability to empathize. There are lives to be lived that no longer include me. I am a taste of something brilliant and twisted, a reminder of what each could have become. Maybe that frightens them, for that one radiant moment, you look into the face of god, and see yourself. Without blind faith, there are none to follow, and none to lead. You fall down into that wonderful recess from reality, and are reborn, terrible and exact; only in insanity itself can you discover clarity. Without chaos there is no calm. I am tried by my own judge and jury, self condemnation to whatever skewed truth there is in this world. I can’t understand any of it, but it makes perfect sense. Fuzzy splatters of black dribble across the table, my hands, and then the world. Unconscious I suppose I slump off of the swollen chintz futon and into the mercy of perfect strangers. All too eager to help.

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         It has been an entire week without Ryan. She hasn’t opened that door once. I fantasize the climb up the sagging linoleum stairs, hard fast pulls at the bungee cord securing the knob. I can hear the underestimated creak of the door, swollen in the August heat. Feel the humid burst of sunlight stretch across puckered lids, and as the glare subsides… there is nothing, the true elusiveness of the situation emerges to torment a tattered brain into one more bout of submission, inherently leading to the slow steady crawl back into self induced comatose.
         I have repositioned myself in the scheme of things at Crystals. Moved my chair to the small corner beside the kitchen, I can only see the bottom of the door, but stare intently at the uninterrupted sun casting overshot rays underneath into the hall, searching for any shadow of movement that might betray life, anything. My eyes are dried, withering eyelashes crusted with dust and dreams without sleep. If only I could cry to loosen to grit, and wipe this whole hellish life away with one faded dirty sleeve.
         Theresa has come in, every other Thursday right on time She gets paid on Wednesday, but by that night, she has already scored with whatever ‘professional’ she’s had to pay off the debts of the previous week. She washes dishes at the buffet on Hart Street and I watch her puckered hands, still spongy and pink from unfinished work, unfold four bills, each in a varied state of degeneration. Twenty, Forty, Fifty, Sixty. Four for One. Theresa stabbed a man to death after he raped her, seven months ago. Around that time she started coming in every week, same day, same score. I am counting in Thursdays. Has it come already? I have lost time as well as reason. That means it’s been nine days for Ryan.

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         This is a last call for all addicts, the de-veined specimens of evolutions greatest failures, each grandiose in its own tragedy. The last stand; we are great. Volunteered martyrs, sacrificed to the true power inside the human mind, in which every great victor has fought but for his own demise. In death he discovers the meaning of knowledge, and the truth, between good and evil. In that fact, you become greater than man, only then to surpass heaven and hell, and both Fathers in their house. I will capture this, in words. Material proof the greatness unknown. The centrifugal movement of the soul, projection. I have lost myself in some alien place. The crunch of young snow whines beneath my heels, there is no wind, I am frozen here, in this moment. Each tidy snowflake descends silently, a tiny untouched destiny, bound to fall like all those before, to the harsh reality of a concrete world. Pushed aside only by my jutting shoulders, hunched to bear the weight of walking through time.
         I have been unconscious for almost an entire minute. No one is bothering to look away from me, as I pull a confused and enlightened self off of the floor. All of them are excited to see such a sight. Inviting themselves into the spectacle, offering assistance, water, coffee and tea. A few kind words, and having spoken them, bearing an abundance of now excusable stares. There are a group of teenage girls here, who come into smoke and drink coffee after work, their brand new mustangs parked across too many stalls. They are trying much too hard to act concerned without masking the collective contempt behind overstretched jaws and curious glares, now widened in panic, having met my own demented stare. There is a hot sensation in my gut, a feverish rolling boil of laughter. Uncontrollable convulsions loosen my bladder. The hot itchy warmth tickles down through layers of cloth, and an anorexic silhouette wracked with sobs of humor, walks out of a swanky west side coffee shop into the drunken snow.