Pint Half...

You hold the half full pint to the light, admiring the stale crispness of the brew. Relax, soak up the raw atmosphere of the bar. Anywhere in the city to huddle away from the storm is a God send for you, your clothes still clinging to your skin from the outside rain. You realise you don’t even know the name of the place you’ve stumbled into, but that doesn’t bother you too much. Compared to your office block, those cafés and restaurants in the city, this place is colourful.  The blacks, the browns, the faded dark red of cracked leather bar stools; the bar lights, all of it is colourful in comparison. It’s been another stale week drooling into your lap as the week limped by. And then to finish it off it shits down on you as your heading home! Urges are all around you, beer is one that you can only just afford to give in to, if only to numb the pain of everyday life.
The rain pounds away outside but the faint sound of a broadcaster can still be heard as if from a distance. He’s shouting emphatically about a try that’s just taken place in the league match on the sizable television situated in the centre of the wall. Smaller and older looking T.V’s are set about the place so that all, including those sitting at the bar around its corner, can see what’s happening. That’s where you sit.  Out of the way; you have no desire to watch the match, right now you’re more a fan of beer than of League. You had been in a bad enough mood before it started had started raining.  You had felt paralyzed from the sickening normalcy of your life. And then like typical Auckland weather it had come out of nowhere, leaving you completely unprepared and very soaked. The bar was not a planned escape route, but you feel quite pleased now that you stumbled in.
Looking around you can see that the bar is relatively empty. But that’s to be expected this early on a sour afternoon. The peace and tranquillity allowed to you at this time is the real treat that the pub has offered. You begin to let everything outside of you fade to a dull numbness in the exterior of your mind, allowing your inner thoughts to cascade together; to be thought about all as one, and individually at the same time. Meditation of sorts, this helps to cleanse your inner self, relish it.
A pained hoarse cough snaps you back into the sports bar. The source of the disturbance has come from a patron a few seats to your left. A stretched creature he is, wearing a black hooded coat and cradling his own beer. At first you do not recognize the shell of a person who has let out the disturbed shriek, but with a tilted swallow of his own brew the hood slides back just a fraction enough for an unmistakable dimpled chin to poke out. And that is it. Like a sledge hammer to the chest everything that was concerning you is thumped out with an emotional punch. You become lost in the half empty pint glass of the neighbour. The rising bubbles in the strong gold of the beer help to drift you away for a frozen moment.
You are there in that horrible flat. You are there in that horrible flat with that chin poking at you. You hate that chin and what it’s attached to, poking at you.

The flat is on one of the top floors of a broken down city apartment complex. You can see an alley way from the main window where all the johns take the street hookers at night. The poor, otherwise disused alley is sprawled with all manner of human waste and depravities. What happened to that phone call to the local council you told yourself you were going to make. A feeble effort at bettering your circumstances you know, but once upon a time you were so sure you were going to make it. Good intentions got lost somewhere in the distance you created between yourself and that alley, even with a view of it. The rest of the flat is cramped disowned and uncared for. The stove top only has one working element, the fridge so loud it keeps you up at night and drips all over. All the walls are cracked and damaged from the years of neglect. You hated it from the start. But you don’t have a choice. Money is tight, what other option do you have? It isn’t until a while later that you can’t take it. With the help of that chin everything becomes too much, that flat and that alley, and that chin.
The chin holds the lighter under a glass tube with a bulb at the end. His crack pipe he says. You hate that. “Crack pipe”. Who is he kidding; it’s for meth plain and simple, what was the point in trying to hide it like that? He’s trying to get specks of white that have built up since the last time he had used it. “You can reheat them and smoke it again”, the dimpled chin explains, his eyes widening in rhythm with his explanation as if you should be grateful for the life lesson. He gives you the pipe, some white rice like chunks shoved inside. Just as the chin had done, you light the bottom of the bulb. After a short time it puffs up with white smoke which, as movies and T.V shows have taught you, is your cue to inhale it deeply.

Rice. P. Pure. A burst of coldness chills you. Meth. Ice. Crack.  The coldness passes. Now you rush. Everything is clear. You know what is going on, you understand.

And then you wake.

That was a time in your life you try to ignore but know you can never forget. You wish you had never met that chin. It took you a long time to realise what it really was. A pale ghost made of nothing but bones dead to the world, an agent of poison.  He knew it would kill you. He wanted it to kill you. It took everything you had to get away.

         Your stomach turns as the wave of memory washes over you and you slowly retract back to the sports bar. Your body is tensing, the colours in the bar suddenly becoming to real and vivid for comfort. All you can think to do is swallow the rest of your beer and flee. It’s what your whole body screams to do, the threat of an old and horrible self awakening with every second you stay. Before the Frankenstein of the past is fully awakened your legs get their feeling back. You stand. All you know is that you have to go. Get out of the storm, block him out... forget.
It’s the weekend now you remember to yourself as you pass the chin and open the bar door; got that barbeque at what’s his names tomorrow. At least you have that. You peer out into the world; your eyes adjust to the light creeping out of breaking clouds. It lights your way home. You feel glad.