Asylum

I am not a bad man.

Bad men don’t love. Bad men don’t make the effort I do to always keep them in my thoughts. It is because of them that I had stayed there, sitting like a rusted nail in a rotted plank in that law-forsaken jungle of a ghetto. The smell that suffocates the air – a combination of stale rain water, week old pork souring in the garbage, and tail pipe exhaust that blew in my face while I sat next to the street – had turned my stomach with every inhalation since the first day I had made this place my home. The clothes I wore, a blazer and trousers from Bloomingdale’s with a pair of Cole Haan loafers, were the same ones I had worn for the past three years. I still wore my wedding band. So many times had I been tempted to trade it in, to barter it away at the trade shop for money to buy my sanctuary. But a week’s worth of inebriated bliss is little compensation for the countless memories that inhabit the small circle of shiny metal that I hid behind my fingerless gloves. Not even for them would I have ever seriously considered a trade.

I heard a stranger walk by, mumbling: “Damn, these people stink. What a waste.”

I did it for them. The short order cooks, the housewives, the nurses, the countless other 'can’t-be-late-to-the-job-I-hate' people shuffling along the sidewalk each day; I had tolerated this hollow exoskeleton that once was a good life for them.

Hiding from the expressions of their passing faces, I wondered how they could hate me the way they do. Just get to know me, sir. Talk to me, Ma’am. They would see that I am not the man they think I am.

Their looks, the scalding heat from all of their raised lip corners and squinted eyes, burned into me like hell’s brimstone. But did I deserve their scowls and their half-whispered curses? Would I have received the same condemnation if they knew the truth about Seth Whalcott, the one time investment guru and newlywed husband of the lovely Sheena Whalcott? If they only knew me and why I sipped from my bottle of imitation Jim Beam, smelling as though I had slept in the bowels of a dead whale, then they would have shook my hand and thanked me for all I did for them.

But none of them knew. None of them had ever asked.

I shook the bottle in my hand and watched the brown syrup swirl at the bottom. Only about three drinks were left.

“Spare some change sir?” I pleaded the broad shouldered man with dark hair and bushy sideburns. He looked down on me like a plumber looking down into a clogged drainpipe, and exhaled in a loud snort as he shook his head.

“Have a good day sir.” I followed up, gripping my bottle tighter. I always wished them a good day, donation or not.

I felt the apathy of drunkenness start to leave my body through the pores of my skin. The smell of my sweat - the dank leftovers of whiskey after my body had taken all the nutrients it could - permeated the air around me. I noticed that the woman approaching in the lime green sweat pants walked in a rounded path to avoid me, quickening her step as she neared. I didn’t bother asking her for even a dime. I just held up my hand and waved it once to the left.

“Good morning, ma’am.”

She looked so scared. But she should have known that I wouldn’t have hurt her. My head was still swimming in the buzzing plasma of intoxication and that meant she was safe from harm. I won’t hurt you, ma’am. Have a good day.

I stood to my feet and took in the world as it spun around my eyes. The emptiness of my bowels stirred and I winced as the hunger cramped my stomach.

The sounds – those creaking doors opening to the myriad of small businesses, the young mothers shouting at their kids running too far from view, the restaurant managers scolding their waitresses showing up late for work – flooded my ears like a raging river through a busted dam. The morning sun beat across my brow. The hunger stirred again.

“A quarter for a cup of hot joe?” I asked the man in khaki Dockers and Nautica jacket. He pulled out a five from the stack of money in his brass clip, crumpling it up as he talked on his cell phone. I straightened my back and looked at him as though I were Oliver Twist, finally about to have seconds at lunch. He strutted a few steps further before tossing the green wad over his left shoulder. My eyes trained on the bill, watching it float to the sidewalk like a tumbleweed rolling in the wind.

As I bent down to retrieve his blessing, I saw the man stop at the corner and turn to look at me with his mouth upturned in an iniquitous grin.

“Thank you, sir. Good day to you.”

“Should see the filth on the streets here, babe.” He shouted into the cell phone receiver, laughing as he continued across the intersection.

The hunger squeezed my solar plexus and I hunched over, almost dropping my gift. I coughed and a man’s leg crashed into the side of my head.

“Hey, watch where you step you stupid bum!” He snarled and continued walking. I watched his love handles shake against his tight purple polo as his feet pounded the sidewalk –looks like a big Barney toy, I thought- and I hungered even more.

It had been three weeks since I last ate. The last twenty day’s nourishment: malt liquor, cheap wine, and cheaper whiskey.

Imagining the look of gratitude that I deserved from the Barney man, I closed my eyes and took the last few drinks from my bottle. I felt the warmth of its internal chemistry, that soothing burn of fire water slide down my throat. The beast within me drowned in the alcohol, and I set the bottle in my cardboard box that I used as my storage.

“You people disgust me,” hissed a woman as she rushed by with her twin girls.

“Good day to you and the little ones, ma’am.”

They just don’t know that I do it all for them.

***

A bottle of four-fifty bourbon never tasted so good, I thought as I savored the last drops in the tiny flask.

I reached into my pocket and jingled the change left over. It’s not often I can do that, and the feel of the coins bouncing in my palm was like dipping my hand into sands of a tropical beach, like the one in Acapulco where I had honeymooned.

The crass noise of the streets had slowed to a blur, and the mix of crawling sounds reminded me of a cassette being played in a boom box too low on batteries. My gaze drifted to the sky and its open blue placidness beckoned me. I let my mind float to the cloudless heaven above me, exhaling a flammable mist as I closed my eyes. I continued my ascent until I landed in a time when I had called myself a 'social drinker' and my home had been one with walls and not just sidewalks.

The date: January 1st, 1999. The time: just past midnight, at the same club where I had met my wife five years before.

The New Year stood before us like a butler greeting us at our door. The year 1999 was to be our year; it was to be the year we finally enjoyed the beautiful experience of starting our own family. I had enjoyed a successful career in investment planning, and the business I had started in ’96 possessed a sizable clientele. We both agreed it was time. Our New Year’s resolution was to become parents.

That night was to be our last as care-free youths, our last trot through Neverland. Though I was already in my thirties and Sheena fast approaching them, we had lived like teenagers since college and postponed the responsibilities of child-rearing until we felt we were both ready to give up our night lives.

Sheena had graduated Summa from Vassar, and I had Magna from Trinity. We both had studied hard and because so had missed the perpetual party on campus during the weekends. Our twenties had been the time to make up for all the lost fun and we had collected in full. It was like cashing in a mature bond, and the dividend took us from Maui to Ibiza.

Drugs had never been part of our normal routine, but that night I felt compelled by the allure of the designer dopes I had read about in the papers.

“Just one hit, Sheena. I promise. This is our last night out like this, remember?”

I remember Sheena looking at me with those soft, green eyes –how they looked like jade crystal in the glittering spotlights of the club- and touching my hand.

“I just think it's a little dangerous Seth,” she said.

Sheena had graduated with a major in chemistry –one of only a handful of women to do it that year- and had been making steady career progress at Blair Pharmaceutical Labs.

I should have heeded her warning.

I approached a dealer whose name I had overheard at the next table. We shook hands and he told me his name was Steele. No last names, no small talk. Just, “Yo, you looking to spend the night in paradise my man? Then Steele gots exactly what you need baby.”

The drug he was selling was called Utopia. Steele, a white guy with dreadlock braids in his red hair who wore pants that would fit a man three times his meager weight, told me, “One hit of this, and all you ever wanted is yours.”

It was supposed to take away all pains -no hunger, no thirst, no physical ailments of any kind would be felt- and elevate the mind into a state of heightened sensitivity. The whole world would become a blooming garden, each smell and every vision would form a beautiful mural that would make me feel as though I were walking through…Utopia

I paid him the fifty dollars he demanded, and took the small tablet that resembled a radioactive Day-Quil gel cap. The pill felt cold in my hand.

Waiting at the table for Sheena to return, I rolled the glowing tab between my thumb and forefinger. I had previously experimented with just a few of the generic drugs –a toke or two of marijuana, a line or two of coke- but had never sampled any of the modern wares. Rolling the tab across my tongue, I thought: glad I didn’t buy into that extasy craze, this is the way to try out the designer shit.

Sheena returned and gave me one last pleading look.

“Sure you don’t wanna ride to the promised land with me?” I asked.

Her admonishing laugh was my only reply. That laugh is the last thing I remember before waking up in the hospital.

Convulsing and coughing uncontrollably, I could hear the nurses breathing in my face as they struggled to hold me down. My stomach twisted and my mouth felt like it was full of sand. I couldn’t breathe; it was though I was caught in a vacuum and the air was being sucked from my lungs. The faces of the nurses phased in and out of my vision, and each time my mind processed their image they appeared elongated and wavy. My mind was as far away from the borders of Utopia as my body was from Jupiter. The nurses started calling my name when the alarm buzzed on the blood pressure monitors.

“Seth. Mr. Whalcott. Breath, sir. Inhale. Stay with us Seth.”

My hollow lungs flexed in my chest. Gasping, I felt my head begin to float.

***

“Wake up, Seth.”

The words were no longer in my dream but in my ear, mixing with the beeping horns and hissing brakes of buses making their stops.

“Seth, wake up honey.”

Sheena was making her daily visit, and had awakened me from my dream.

Sheena had been coming here every day at sundown since I made this sidewalk my home. She always showed up with a smile across her smooth lips and a tear in her eye. She never believed I was a bad man. She understood. Sheena knew I did it for her as well.

“Why do you keep coming here? You know it’s not safe.” That’s not what I wanted to say. I wanted to tear my soul out of my skin and wrap it around her. Never had I wanted to hold her more.

“I’m not giving up, Seth. I just can’t. Why haven’t you been back to the doctor? I hear they have made some progress on their research.” She wiped at her eyes and acted like it was dust. Though Sheena always tried to remain positive, the strain in her voice spoke volumes about the hopelessness of my case.

“Is there a cure yet? Does anyone even know what is wrong with me, really?” I couldn’t let her know how I felt.

“They are trying, Seth. Just give them a chance.”

Scowling, I grunted and reached for my bottle. It was empty, and I knew that she could not be near me. My only asylum, the only thing that had kept her and the others safe was gone. I jumped to my feet and startled her.

“You have to leave now Sheena.”

“Why won’t you listen, Seth?”

“I am not safe. You know it’s been three weeks since I’ve eaten. The pains are killing me. It keeps taking more and more to keep it away. I can hardly stand it anymore.”

Suddenly I hunched over, like the werewolf in those old black and white movies – grunting and groaning, warning my would-be victim to flee before it was too late. The pain inside of me widened; it was no longer just in my abdomen but squeezing every muscle in my body from my calves to my neck.

All of the smells that had intoxicated me before -those rotten odors of urban pestilence- were overcome by the scent I could not bear to inhale. Three weeks. I knew I could not go another hour. Not even a fresh bottle of liquid sanctuary could cure the pain this time.

“Go away, Sheena. I am not safe tonight.”

I watched as tears streamed from her eyes like morning dew on a window, and I looked through the glass to the gentle, loving soul inside. As much as she wanted me to go with her –as much as I wanted to be with her- she knew why I was forcing her away. She had seen what I had become. Looking into her glistened eyes, I realized I was not alone in my sacrifices and became immersed in gratitude. As she turned and walked away, I whispered to her the words that were echoing in my mind: “Thank you, Sheena.”

I began replaying the moments I had just spent with my wife in my thoughts. Doing so would allow me to focus on something other than my hunger, and for at least a few more minutes –thirty at the most- I could keep at bay the beast that howled within me. Without a bottle, her memory was the only sanctuary I had left.

Sheena had mentioned possible progress in the research of my condition. I wondered if it were true and if so, to what extent the research had progressed. Was it possible they were close to a treatment, if not a cure? My instincts quickly swallowed any new hope her words had brought. As far as I knew, my case epitomized the word “rare” and the phenomena that had laid siege to my life had only been documented eight times before.

Utopia contained various strengths of both neurotoxins and neurotransmitters, like a cocktail of Prozac and snake venom. However, its dominant ingredient was a powerful new appetite suppressant, a chemical compound called metacanabolic epithyrus, or just simply: thyrus. The effect of thyrus in most people made ephedrine look like Centrum One-A-Day, completely taking away all hunger and thirst. For some users, they could go days without either after just one dose. For most users of Utopia, other than the vibrant hallucinations and numbing of the nerves, that complete absence of want was the most desirable side effect of the drug.

Were it not for the danger of inevitable starvation for those who succumb to its addiction, thyrus would have been a medical breakthrough of historic proportions. Instead, it was banned globally; available only through the black market and those low-lives that peddled Utopia.

For others –rare individuals without the right chemistry and amino acids- the complete opposite effects resulted. Missing were the beautiful images and the feelings of floating on air; hunger did not disappear but intensified painfully; demonic visions dominated what was most likely to be the last moments alive. The eight other cases had resulted in almost instant death. I was the lone survivor of an adverse reaction to Utopia.

I had learned that surviving is not all it’s cracked up to be. Sometimes simply surviving was like making it all the way to the Super Bowl only to be blown out in front of the whole world in the biggest game of all. In my case, surviving meant taking each breath in hell and wasting away under the glare of hatred from every face I see.

Every face but hers, and yet hers is the one face I had to avoid.

I remember seeing her face the day that she had witnessed what the hunger had done to the man she loved. The man she still loves.

After a two week’s stay in the hospital and a three day coma –filled with dreams whose terror I cannot repeat and keep my sanity- I was welcomed home. Sheena began working furiously in the kitchen, preparing all of the dishes that had once been my favorites: manicotti marinara, shrimp enchiladas, pork and peppers. None of it appealed to me any longer. The one thing I craved, the scent of which antagonized my hunger with every passing minute, was…

“No,” I whispered, trembling in the cool yet comfortable evening wind.

I gave my thoughts pause. I could not bear to think of that scent, the same one that had been slowly enveloping me since Sheena’s visit. The day after my wife had found me satisfying my hunger, I had discovered my only asylum from the prison of my condition was the apathetic bliss of total intoxication. I had forfeited my home and the woman I loved to be amongst the decaying odors of society’s forsaken –the homeless, the street walkers, the psychotic and the unfortunate- in service to them, for their safety.

They were not safe anymore.

The aroma was thick, and I knew that I would be helpless to resist the punishing appetite within me. The body craves what it does not have –carbohydrates, proteins, various chemical compounds that control our metabolism- and my body craved the key elements required by the starving beast that had taken over my entire being. I needed what every person who had walked by that day had inside of them; in their blood, their skin, their muscles. The smell of their flesh had aroused the hustling molecules of the drug inside of me and I had become a slave to its hunger. The Utopia controlled my every urge.

I trembled at the thought that one of them would have to die.

“Let me hook you up, baby. You wanna take that magic carpet ride? Break me off a fitty and spend the night in Utopia, baby boyee.” The voice was screaming familiarity in my mind, and ripped me away from the concentrated control state that had momentarily abated my impulses.

“Steele gots what you need. Holla at me.”

Standing on the corner –only thirty feet in front of me- was the man who had doomed me to hell. I had been taught that only bad men belonged in hell, but I am not a bad man; I never was. Evil men, such as the one that was peddling my damnation about ten steps away, should be made to suffer. Yet I was the one living in that dark dungeon, protecting all of them from my urges, while the bad men roamed the streets in their Roca-wear jean suits and two-way pagers. Steele was not part of "them"; he didn’t deserve my protection.

Smelling the warm, raw flesh beneath his skin –savoring the pulsing elixir in his veins- I knew that I had been sent a gift. The time had come to satisfy that urge, to eat once more, and offer my body what it required most.

Wiping the saliva from my mouth, I stepped towards him.

“Utopia doesn’t exist in a pill, my friend.” I whispered.

At the same time, I wondered if sanctuary really existed in a bottle.