Decline

Ensconced in darkness I rest, very nearly spread eagle across the expanse of my queen sized bed. Computer is on the floor, humming softly near my bed, radiating with circular white light. I shiver slightly, slowly stirring from slumber, suspiciously eying my phone. I can't see it but I feel like something is wrong and it's about to light up and shatter my perfect darkness and silence with it's flashing and repetitive playing "Faded" by Drake.

Sure enough, as I lay there, hoping for my exhaustion to carry me back into the flawless inky blackness that is my dreamless sleep, my phone rings and vibrates and annoys the living fuck out of me before falling off my bedside table and onto the floor. I struggle to locate it, answering several rings in, emanating a very strong fuck-off vibe by saying, "I'm going to torture you for days for waking me up at this hour."

"...it's fucking 9:30. The sun is still out for fuck's sake."

"Hey, I didn't ask you where the sun was. Who is this and what do you want?"

I don't really recognize his name. But I've met a lot of people lately and assume that it's just someone looking for something. I tell him what I tell all people I don't remember, "I don't know what you're looking for but I'm positive I can't help you out, skillet."

"What? I don't need you for that, I'm on my shit. ______ told me to call you because yo girl is here and she's having some issues."

I'm already up and putting clothes on in the dark, too preoccupied to bother with any of the four lights around me. "What kind of fucking issues, Ghetto Bastard?"

"Peep it when you get here. I'll text you the address. You do have text, right old man?"

"If you did anything to her, I promise that it will take the police years to find all of you."

He hangs up and texts me the address that several minutes later I enter into MapQuest. The house isn't far from where I am, certainly won't take me very long to figure out what happened and firebomb the living hell out of the ghetto bastard's humble abode.

The air was still cold then, my breath surrounding me as I locked my front door and headed to the car that's nearly as old as I am. It's gold and dented and needs an oil change and probably a new owner but it's gotten me through a reasonable amount of situations, a little worse for wear.

Roughly ten minutes later, I'm railing on a door like the police, waiting impatiently for ghetto bastard to cut the shit and let me in because it's cold and even my jacket fashioned from the corpses of nearly two score of dead baby seals is doing much to alleviate the abysmal weather conditions. I blow into my hands, like it's really going to stop the chill and contemplate lighting a cigarette as the door finally opens.

Without a word he takes me to a room towards the back, leading me through a sea of passed out teenagers and early twenty-year olds. It smells like all kinds of illegal in this house, the stench of marijuana and pills and alcohol hangs heavily in the air, waiting for me to inhale. I can tell the house is old because of the outdated wallpaper boasting imitation wood paneling and the natural lowness of the ceilings, giving the constant impression of being in the basement of a thirty year old man that enjoys watching football and drinking Samuel Adams before smacking his wife around to get dinner started.

Just about every flat surface is cluttered with all the telltale signs of young irresponsibility, empty beer cans and plastic baggies possessing scarce traces of marijuana, mostly stems and seeds, with a few white smudges here and there for good measure. Ghetto Bastard gestures for me to go into the room and hobbles away in search, probably, of more cheap thrills and visceral experiences. I let him go because I can see her and I have nothing to say to him anymore. Every time I see her, it's like I'm waking up for the first time in a while, nostalgic and bittersweet. Even as she was, the sinking despondent feeling is sinking in.

From far away she looks laid up in a comfortable position on the black micro-suede couch, lying on her stomach, face to the side, her right arm and leg hanging precariously off of the padded cliffs. Apparently it's been a very long night already for her. Her mascara and eyeliner have run down her face, staining it a mixture of purple and black. Strands of her blond hair stick to her face, damp with sweat and tears. Most concerning, her nose was bloody. The clothes she's wearing have the wrinkled appearance that comes from laying in them for too long, her Nickelodeon chic outfit showing the hallmarks of hard living: frayed edges and cuts, specks of vomit and blood, fitting just slightly on an askewed axis.

The trashcan on the floor next to her is half full with beer cans, a couple condom wrappers and a sizable amount of vomit. I sigh a little bit at the thought of what she's been doing, but she seems alright, if feverish. I check her nose and see flecks of white powder around the nostrils. I realize I am in a little over my head as _______, her friend that had Ghetto Bastard sandbag me with this, arrives at the doorway, looking a little less inebriated than the others at the party.

"What are you doing?" ______ asks as I begin to pick her friend off of the couch.

"I'm taking her to the hospital. We'll discuss this later. Run interference with Ghetto Bastard because if he tries to stop me I will burn this house down."

"Wha-" she starts but I'm already walking away, finding it easy to carry the 105 pounds over my shoulder and into my front car seat. I drape the woven tapestry of dead infant seals over her because I can't drive with jackets on and I wanted to smoke copiously out my window on the way to Harris Methodist. She looks fragile to me for the first time since her abortion.

A frantic ten minute drive and approximately seven cigarettes later I pull up and bring her into the emergency room. The nurses and general night staff of the hospital looked less than pleased to see a potentially overdosing young woman carried into their domain. A middle-aged nurse approaches me, looking like she lost the rock, paper, scissors match that decided who would come check on us.

"What happened?"

"I'm not sure. I wasn't there. I'm pretty sure that cocaine and alcohol were involved, maybe marijuana."

"Is she allergic to anything?"

"I don't think so. I don't remember her being allergic to anything."

"Alright, sir, fill this out while we take care of her and we'll update you as soon as we know anything further."

I accept a large packet filled with questions I don't know the answers to as I watch the staff put her on a bed and start examining her, taking some of her blood and rigging up an I.V. I don't want to see it happen so I go out front for a cigarette. As I light it, I notice blood drops on my hand. I start to shiver although, whether it was from the cold or coming down off the adrenaline, I don't really know.